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QlLJVIAN'S 

Historical Riders 



No. 3. 



THE • MAKING- OF-THE 
AMERICAN • NATION 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

♦ -'-?— © a^ u ji ' Ii ^ Ijt Iffl. 

Shelf ...^.1.? 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




SAMUEL ADAM.^ 



GILMAN'S HISTORICAL READERS. — No. III. 



THE 



MAKING OF THE AMERICAN NATION 



A BOOK FOR AMERICAN BOYS AND GIRLS 



BY 



ARTHUR OILMAN, M. A., 

AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, FIRST STEPS IN 

ENGLISH LITERATURE, FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL HISTORY, 

TALES OF THE PATHFINDERS, THE STORY OF 

THE SARACENS, ETC. 




CHICAGO 

The Interstate Publishing Company 
Boston : 30 Franklin Street 



OTHER WORKS BY ARTHUR OILMAN. 



A History of the American People. One volunic. Illustrated, 
pp. 692. Octavo. Introduction Price, $1.00. 

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Short stories from the Dictionary. One volume, pp. 129. Sent 
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First steps in Enghsh Literature. One volume. i6mo. pp. 233. 
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Copyright, 1887, n"^' 
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PREFACE 




jHEN the late John Richard Green took for the 
title of one of his interesting works, "The Making 
of England," he intended to write a history of 
the period when English political and social life took the 
form that it retains at the present time. He really pre- 
sented a history of the period before the "age of full na- 
tional development," as he himself said. His title gave 
the reader reason to expect rather an account of " the for- 
mation and growth of England as a nation," as one of his 
friendly critics remarked. 

The term " Making of the American Nation," as used 
in the title of the present volume, is intended to mean the 
process by which the loosely connected American commu- 
nities outgrew their colonial condition of social and polit- 
ical life, and developed into a nation. 

In writing for young persons the author feels the ne- 
cessity of being at once clear, accurate, and concise, — of 
omitting those details of politics and war which form 
to a great extent the substance of history in general, and 
of firmly keeping in hand the line of thought, so that the 
process of national growth and the causes and results of 



IV PREFACE. 

great national discussions, will be apparent to the careful 
reader at all times. 

The purpose of the series of which this is the third 
volume, is to give young readers such a sketch of the his- 
tory of their native or adopted country as will not only 
lead them to desire to know more about it, but will also 
furnish them an outline that will not be found barren and 
unfruitful if their opportunities for historical study chance 
to be limited to these books. 

To the works of original research that the author men- 
tioned in the former'volumes are to be added others which 
give fresh studies of particular portions of the period here 
under discussion. In wading through the record of the 
war of parties and the bloody stories of civil strife, the 
author has endeavored to free his mind from all party 
bias, his only wish being to keep himself true to that idea 
of an American Nation which filled the mind of the Father 
of his Country. If our sons and daughters can be educated 
to have a proper appreciation of their country without 
arrogance, and a regard for other nations without cringing 
obsequiousness, we may feel that we are in a fair way to 
bring up a nation that will be strong and respected. 

Cambridge, May, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. The Americans object to certain Taxes . . 7 

II. The Americans talk about Union . . . 13 

III. Some Virginian Neighbors .18 

IV. The Neighbors the Friends 24 

V. The Neighbors at Manhattan . . . .28 

VI. The Neighbors in Boston 34 

VII. Tumults Everywhere 38 

VIII. A Paltry Tax on Tea 43 

IX. A Nation Founded in the Carpenters' Hall . 50 

X. What General Gage was doing .... 56 

XI. The Battle on Bunker's Hill . . . -65 

XII. The Hero from Virginia 69 

XIII. The Fourth of July 75 

XIV. How THE Colonies became a Confederacy . 82 
XV. How THE War was waged 88 

XVI. Troubles that came with Peace ... 94 

XVII. Washington the First President . . . .101 

XVIII. A Great Invention for the South ... 106 

XIX. The Strife of Parties 109 

V 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



XX. Another War with England . . . . iiS 

XXI. Good Feeling and Hope 123 

XXII. The Country Filling up 128 

XXIII. South Carolina Restive 133 

XXIV. A Great Increase of Territory .... 140 
XXV. Another Compromise 146 

XXVI. Drifting into Trouble 152 

XXVI I. War between Brethren 15S 

XXVIII. Peace and Reconciliation 164 

XXIX. Progress of the re-uniied Country . . .170 

XXX. A Political Crisis 175 

XXXI, A Nation Full-Grown 181 




THE 



MAKING OF THE AMERICAN NATION. 




CHAPTER I. 

THE AMERICANS OBJECT TO CERTAIN TAXES. 

Y the year 1763 the authority of England 
was supreme over the great territory east 
of the Mississippi River. It was her sailors 
who first proved the existence of the continent. Her 
daring explorers had very early seen the importance 
of the " Adantic slope," as the strip of land is called 
which for a long period comprised the greatest cities, 
towns, and commercial interests of the Western World. 
Now they had won it. 

The men who peopled this region had most of 
them come from England, because they had been 
oppressed there. They wanted more freedom of 



8 AMERICANS MUST HAVE LIBERTY. 

action, and they found it. Such men were not 
inclined to submit quietly to a lessening of the liberty 
they had fled from their mother-country to obtain. 
Least of all would they submit to an effort to limit 
their freedom when put forth by the king under whose 
government they had suffered. That the king, his 
ministers, and the parliament had interfered in the 
affairs of the colonists in a way that they did not 
like, we have already seen. 

The Americans had no desire to be represented 
in the home government, and they did not complain 
that they were constrained in their personal liberty; 
but they objected to the navigation laws that kept 
them from buying and selling where they pleased, 
and they complained that they were arbitrarily taxed 
in vexatious ways. 

Benjamin Franklin, of whom we shall have much 
to say, was a Boston boy who was brought up as a 
printer, and afterward lived in Philadelphia. He be- 
came a very important citizen in the capital of Penn- 
sylvania. The people there saw that his head was 
clear, that he was wise, and not afraid of anybody. 
He printed a newspaper, he published an almanac 
that contained many wise sayings, he founded a great 



1757.] ENGLAND IN WANT OF MONEY. 9 

library, he became postmaster, and at last, when the 
people thought that they were treated unjustly by the 
proprietors of Pennsylvania in regard to taxes, he was 
sent to London to stand up for them. (1757.) 

Franklin was successful in his plea, but he heard 
a doctrine expressed by one of the king's ministers 
that set him to thinking. This man said that the 
king was the lawmaker for America, and that the 
people were not to be allowed to interfere with 
the execution of his will. 

Another remark made by the same minister 
showed more plainly how the colonies were looked 
upon in England. "America," said he, "must not do 
anything to interfere with Great Britain in the markets 
of Europe." Franklin replied that if the Americans 
were to be permitted only to plant seeds and reap 
crops, but not to sell them, the king might as well 
send ships and bring them back to England. 

Great Britain was very much in need of money in 
those days. The war with France in the time of 
William and Mary had obliged the government to 
borrow large sums, and the other war, which closed in 
1 7 13, added much more to the nation's expenses. The 
government could not pay its debt. It has not paid 



lO FRANKLIN EXAMINED IN LONDON. [1766. 

it yet. To pay even the interest was a great burden 
upon the jjeoplc. 

Meantime America was growing larger and richer. 
It occurred to the ministers that considerable sums 
might be taken from the Americans to help pay the 
interest on the English debt. The colonists were 
already taxed " for the regulation of trade," as it was 
expressed. They began to think that if their laws 
were to be made by the king, and he was also to tell 
them how much they should pay in taxes, there would 
be litde liberty left for them. 

The people were not so much dissatisfied with 
what they called "external" taxes as they were with 
those that they called " internal." They were will- 
ing that England should oblige them to pay a duty 
on goods that were coming to America, because 
when they arrived they might refuse to buy them ; 
but they did not like to pay taxes on commerce 
levied by means of stamps, which were to be applied 
to papers that were used for business purposes. 

When Franklin was in London, in 1 766, he was 
examined in the House of Commons and asked 
a great many questions about the Americans. He 
replied plainly, and said that though the temper of 



ENGLISH RIGHTS UNDER THE MAGNA CHARTA. II 

the colonists toward the government in England 
had been the best in the world before 1763, the 
year that the French had been finally defeated, it 
changed very much as soon as the new stamp taxes 
were threatened. 

Before that time, he said, the Americans had been 
governed at the expense of a little pen, ink, and 
paper; they had been drawn by a thread. He said 
that they never would pay the stamp duty, nor any 
" internal " tax established by the parliament, because 
they had no representation in that body, as other 
Englishmen had. He added that there was not 
enough gold and silver coin in America to pay such 
a duty. 

Five hundred years before the time of Franklin 
an English king had solemnly promised that his 
people should always have certain rights, and he 
had signed a great Charter, called the Magna 
Cliarta^ in testimony of his agreement. The same 
promise had been repeated by Charles the First, 
and by King William, in two documents known as 
the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights. 
These great laws declared, among other things, 
that the people should never be taxed without the 



12 AMERICANS TROUD OF THEIR OLD CLOTHES. 

consent of their representatives. Franklin said that 
the colonists trusted that these laws should protect 
them. 

There were two other remarks of his that we 
ought not to forget. He said that a good deal of 
money was owed to him in America, but that if it 
was only to be obtained by using stamped paper, he 
would rather give it all up. Finally he was asked, — 

"What used to be the pride of the Americans?" 

" To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of 
Great Britain." 

"What is now their pride?" 

"To wear their old clothes over again until they 
can make new ones." 

This satisfied the English that the Americans were 
in earnest, but it did not keep them from trying to 
force a tax law upon them. 



^&^ 



CHAPTER II. 




THE AMERICANS TALK ABOUT UNION. 

HE intention of the British government was 
to make all American trade profitable to 
England only; and next to govern the colo- 
nies from England, not allowing the inhabitants any 
voice in the matter. Of course the cost of keeping 
up the American government was to be paid by the 
colonists in taxes. The ministers of the king told the 
English people that taxes upon the Americans would 
make their own lighter, as I have shown. They were 
mistaken in thinking that the colonists would bear 

o 

such an imposition. 

Notice was sent a year in advance to America 
that a " stamp act," as it was called, was to be passed. 
This was a mistake, for it gave the Americans all that 
time to prepare their minds for resistance. They had 

13 



14 MASSACHUSETTS STIRRED UP. [1760. 

been much excited before. Duties had been laid on 
sugar and molasses as early as 1733, and the people 
had been forbidden to sell hats abroad, or to make 
rolling"-mills or iron-furnaces at home. It had proved 
quite difficult to collect American taxes, and in 1760 
officers were authorized to enter men's houses or 
shops to seek for goods that ought to have paid some 
duty. Judges gave them "writs of assistance " as 
their authority. You may imagine Americans did 
not like such laws. 

James Otis of Boston gave up his connection with 
the government of office Avhich obliged him to 
enforce this law. He then went into court and 
argued with great eloquence against carrying it out. 
He filled the people who heard him with such feel- 
ings that they seemed ready to take up arms imme- 
diately to oppose the new laws. That is said to 
have been the time when our independence was born. 
Americans never forgot the words of Otis. 

As soon as one colony had spoken out, others 
made their complaints. Virginia was stirred up 
against other laws about trade ; and New York was 
aggrieved because a judge had been appointed to 
hold office as long as the king thought best, instead 



1765.] A STAMP ACT PASSED. 1 5 

of during his good behavior. You may be sure the 
people were watching all agents of the English gov- 
ernment carefully. 

In 1765 the stamp act was actually passed by 
parliament. The English thought that it would be 
peacefully submitted to. They were mistaken. The 
Americans immediately saw that they would be much 
stronger in their opposition if they were to unite. 
They had thought of it before, we know ; but it 
required great danger to bring them together. When 
men, or even children, agree to work or play to- 
gether for any purpose, they find it necessary to do 
some things that they do not all fancy. They have 
to give up to one another somewhat. They must be 
enough in earnest about the work that they wish to 
unite to do, or they will not be willing to give up 
enough to succeed. So it was that the colonists 
were only able to work together when there was 
a very great danger before them. 

The New England colonies had once had a union ; 
but we know that it was not easy for them to keep 
together in a time of peace. William Penn had 
proposed an annual congress to regulate American 
trade, as long ago as 1697; Franklin had afterward 



l6 VIRGINIA PASSES RESOLUTIONS. [1765. 

presented his plan for a perpetual union. It was at 
the meeting- of men from the different colonies to 
take measures for protecting themselves against the 
Indians in 1754; but the people were too jealous of 
their rights to give up anything to the government 
that was proposed. 

Of course, if a body of men join together for 
any work, they must choose some of their number 
to manage the business. They cannot all do it. If 
they try that they soon find out their mistake. For 
this reason each has to give up a share of his 
power to the officers chosen. 

Affairs were in such a state that the Americans 
thought of union again. When it was known that 
the stamp act had actually been passed, the legisla- 
ture of Virginia met and voted that such taxes 
were not allowed by the Magna Cliarta, nor by the 
other laws granting freedom to Englishmen. A mes- 
senger was hurried off to Boston, to bear the res- 
olution to the people there. On the way he passed 
another carrying from Massachusetts to Virginia and 
Carolina an invitation to a congress. 

Before a congress could be got together the ves- 
sel bringing the news that the act was really a law 



AMERICANS WARM ONE TOWARD ANOTHER. 1/ 

arrived, and the excitement was deepened. New York 
announced that it would stand by the other colonies. 
The people prepared to dress in homespun, to 
raise more flax, and not to eat lamb, so that there 
might be more sheep to furnish wool to be made 
into cloth. Everybody was determined to make 
the duty that England should collect as small pos- 
sible, — if indeed they permitted her to collect 
any at all. The men were warm toward one an- 
other. They began to feel as though they belonged 
to the same country, and that not England. 




CHAPTER III. 



SOME VIRGINIAN NEIGHBORS. 




IHE Americans were settled at considerable 
distances from one another. Neighbors in 
the same colony were not very near to- 
gether ; neighboring colonies were much farther apart 
than they look to us on the map now. We think of 
Baltimore and Washington as separated but by an 
hour ; and of Philadelphia and New York as places 
so near that we may breakfast in one city and lunch 
in the other. We think nothinof of breakfastinof in 
Boston and dining in New York. We go to Chicago 
and back again from the Atlantic coast in a part 
of a week. We must not think so of the different 
colonies in the early times. 

Virginia was neighbor to Pennsylvania ; but it was 
not without difficulty that one traveled from Phila- 

i8 



1763.] PARSONS AND TOBACCO. IQ 

delphia to Williamsburg, which was the capital of the 
Old Dominion at the time we are now interested in. 
Jamestown had been burned during the Bacon rebel- 
lion, and Richmond did not become the capital until 
later. There was a considerable difference between 
the neighbors in the colonies. 

I wish that I mio-ht have been at Williamsburcr 
in 1763. Patrick Henry, a young man of not quite 
thirty, was there. He had been chosen to represent 
the people as a member of the house of Burgesses, 
or as we should say, if speaking of another state, of 
the house of Representatives. 

Two years before this he had become famous by 
gaining a celebrated law case in the Hanover court- 
house. It was called the " Parsons' Case." By an 
old law each clergyman was entided to a salary of 
sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco, but now the 
people did not wish to pay it, because tobacco had 
risen in value. They wished to pay money at the 
old rates. The bishop of London told the clergymen 
not to take the money, but to force the people to give 
them the tobacco. It seemed to be merely a matter 
of money ; but it grew to be a question between the 
government of England and the Virginians, because 



20 AN AWKWARD-LOOKING MAN. [1763. 

the king took sides with the bishop. The people did 
not hke to have a king and a bishop across the water 
tell them how much they should pay their clergymen. 

Patrick Henry took the side of the people. He 
came into the court one December morning, and saw 
before him twenty of the most learned clergymen of 
the colony. It made no difference to him ; he in- 
tended to stand up for the colonists, whom he thought 
the clergy wished to oppress. He was an awkward, 
rough-looking man. I can imagine that the clergy- 
men did not think there was much to fear from him. 

He rose and began to speak slowly and apparently 
timidly, and they exchanged sly looks with each other. 
As he spoke, his mind became interested in his 
subject. He began to talk of the "right" that every 
man has to choose his own government ; and he 
argued that not the king, nor the parliament of Eng- 
land, nor the clergy in Virginia, had any right to over- 
ride good laws that Virginians had made. Becoming 
excited, he said, " A king who does such a thing is 
not a good father to his people ; he is a tyrant, and 
has no longer a right to obedience ! " 

We cannot imagine the tumult that such fiery 
words excited at a time when every American 



1763.] CHEEKS FLUSHED AND TEARS FLOWED. 21 

was ready to believe that king and clergy were 
oppressors. The lawyer for the clergy cried out, 
"The gendeman has spoken treason," and some 
royalists in the crowd murmured, "Treason! treason ! 
treason!" Royalists were struck with horror. "It 
was inflammatory, it was seditious"; — "there never 
was worse said in the worst days of ancient Rome," 
the people thought. 

Nevertheless, the great throng listened in silence 
to hear what was coming next. Every seat was 
filled ; the window-sills were occupied ; and all bent 
forward to catch the lowest whisper of the bold 
young man. Their cheeks flushed and their tears 
flowed in anger. He pleaded for liberty, and he 
won the day. The jury thought as Henry did. 
The crowd thronged around the young and awkward 
farmer, for he was a farmer as well as a lawyer ; 
they bore him out of the building on their shoulders 
and carried him around the yard in triumph. 

This is the "burgess" that I wish I could have 
seen at Williamsburg in 1765. Thomas Jefferson 
was there. He was a young student of law under 
George Wythe, who also was a member of the body. 
It is thoueht that Georee Washington was in his 



22 YOUNG HENRY TAKES THE LEAD. [1765. 

place as a member. Richard Henry Lee was there. 
All of these men were under forty years of age. 
Jefferson was only twenty-two. Then it was that 
a sio-nal was oriven to the continent, 

Patrick Henry started the fire of patriotism which 
was destined to spread throughout every colony. He 
rose to speak on those resolutions that I have told 
you of, in favor of the natural rights of Virginians. 
The debate was stormy. Threats were uttered. 
Wythe was accustomed to guide the burgesses ; but 
this time young Henry took the direction from him. 
While the older members reasoned with firmness, he 
spoke with fire and zeal. All at once he broke out, 
as he mentioned the dangers about a king, " Tarquin 
and CcEsar each had his Brutus ; Charles the First 
his Cromwell ; and George the Third — " Here the 
speaker paused, and the cry of "Treason! treason! " 
was heard from all parts of the house. 

When the uproar ceased, Henry raised himself 
to his utmost height, fastened his piercing eyes upon 
the chairman, and added, " — may profit by their 
example ! " Then again pausing a few seconds, he 
closed by saying emphatically, " If this be treason, 
make the most of it ! " 



1765.] 



THE THRILL OF HENRY'S WORDS. 



23 



Thus Virginia rang' the alarm-bell. Think you 
that Jefferson, and Wythe, and Lee, and the other 
burgesses, ever forgot the thrill of Patrick Henry's 
words? Jefferson, indeed, said afterward, "Henry 
is the greatest orator that ever lived ! " 




CHAPTER IV. 




THE NEIGHBORS THE FRIENDS. 

HERE was a great difference between the 
habits and modes of hving of the colonists 
i in Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Friends 
passed quiet and peaceful lives ; they did not have 
the terrible troubles with the Indians that many 
other colonists suffered ; they had not been so much 
oppressed by their governors ; they naturally did not 
feel the same deep indignation against England and 
her king that some of the colonists expressed. 

The wealthy Virginians drove in their stately 
coaches with six horses from their quiet country 
homes to Williamsburg, when the burgesses sat there, 
and when they wished to hear the eloquence of 
Henry, or some other favorite. They discussed 
the king and the bishops, the court and the fash- 
24 



SIMPLE COLONIAL LIFE. 2$ 

ions ; they compared notes regarding the pleasures 
of the chase, the last barbecue, the dances and 
the balls, and lived a gay and somewhat careless 
life of pleasure. It was as much like life at the 
English court as it could be in a new land. 

With the Friends it was not so. Philadelphia, 
their capital, was a place of trade. Many of the 
people had great estates, and there were city dwell- 
ers who had gained considerable fortunes; but their 
wealth would seem small indeed to their descend- 
ants now. There was more reading, more study- 
inor more books, better schools, and more sio-ns 
of progress in general than there were in the 
South. The Friends dressed in the quiet colors, 
and their clothes were of the quaint cut, with which 
we are familiar. Many of them lived above their 
shops with their wives and children, and enjoyed 
the cheerful balconies which looked over pretty gar- 
dens. Life was very simple ; they dined at noon, 
made calls in the afternoon, and drank tea at sunset. 
The wives and daughters kept shop as well as the 
men, or they worked embroidery ; but they had 
their amusements also. There were assemblies, and 
sleighing, and skating ; fishing-parties, and even the 
theater. 



26 FRANKLIN GOES TO ENGLAND. [1764. 

In fashionable circles, the men who were not 
Friends wore laced hats and coats, and carried 
swords. There was a great display of color by 
both men and women of this class. Red coats for 
men and boys were common, and the dresses of 
high ladies were sprawled over with flowers of every 
hue. The Friends had much influence in keeping 
society quiet and orderly, though they did not con- 
trol everything. 

Probably there was more liberty in Pennsylvania 
than in any other colony ; and this is a reason why 
there was not an intense wish to resist England. 
Franklin, it is true, went to plead for the Pennsyl- 
vanians against the laws of the Proprietors, but they 
were not desirous of being the leaders in opposition. 
They willingly agreed not to use the articles from 
which England hoped to get an income from the 
colonies, and they gave much good counsel at every 
step of the struggle with the mother-country. 
Pennsylvania gave Franklin to the cause, and his 
advice was of the greatest possible value. He stood 
up for them before the king himself in his own 
court. 

On the third of October, 1765, the mufiled bell 



1765.] DOLEFUL SOUNDS IN PHILADELPHIA. 2/ 

of the State House in Philadelphia was rung, muf- 
fled drums were beaten in the streets, and the feet 
of the people kept time to the doleful sounds as 
they steadily tramped through the city to demand 
the resignation of the stamp distributor. It was 
obtained, and the king's officer wrote, " If Great 
Britain suffers such conduct to pass unpunished, a 
man need not be a prophet nor the son of a prophet 
to see clearly that the empire in North America is 
at an end." 




CHAPTER V. 




THE NEIGHBORS AT MANHATTAN. 

HEN the colony of New York became Eng- 
lish in name it did not become English in 
reality. The hold of the Dutch upon it 
was strong. Though no more immigrants came from 
Holland, the greater portion of the whites at the 
time we are writing of were descendants of the 
original settlers. The patroons still kept up their 
state, and accumulated riches. Agriculture and trade 
were the great interests of the people. Albany, 
Schenectady, and New York were important centers 
of business. Nowhere was there stronger or more 
steady opposition to the British government. It was 
not strange that men who had been passed from 
one king to another should have no kindly feelings 
toward their second master. 



1765.] THE CONGRESS AT NEW YORK. 29 

The delegates chosen by the colonies met at New 
York in October, 1765. The first question to be 
settled concerned the ground on which the claim for 
American liberties should be based. Otis, who was 
sent from Boston, was instructed to base it on the 
freedom of the colonies, and on the charters. 

There was present a Mr. Gadsden from South 
Carolina, who had been one of the leaders in arranging 
for the meeting. He did not agree with this plan. 
He thought that if any claim were based on charters 
there would be differences among the colonists, as 
there were in the terms of the charters. He said, 
and he was very earnest in saying it, that all the 
colonists ought to stand together on the same basis. 
This, he thouorht, should be the natural rights that 
they all felt and knew, because they were men, and 
descendants of Englishmen. Nothing, he exclaimed, 
ought to be said of " colonies " or of "charters"; there 
should, he said, be " no New England man, no New- 
Yorker, known on the continent ; but all of us Ameri- 
cans." The deleorate from New York ao-reed with 
this broad view, and all the others finally came to be 
of the same opinion. 

An English general (Gage) who wrote about this 



3© A STRONG BUNDLE OF STICKS. [1765. 

congress, reported that the members were of different 
opniions, but that they were all agreed that the 
colonics ought not to be subject to laws made in 
England ; that they did not oppose the stamp act 
because they were unwilling to pay a small tax, Init 
because they wished England to know that they 
would not have their rights taken from them. 

Mr. Gadsden said that the point to be insisted 
upon was that the delegates should be united, and 
he was willing to give up whatever was necessary to 
wipe out all differences. John Adams of Massachu- 
setts said that the rights of the American people came 
from the Great Lawgiver of the Universe ; that they 
were given before any earthly government was formed, 
and that no human laws could take them away. 

When the members of this congress had agreed 
upon a Declaration of Rights, and an Address to the 
English government demanding the repeal of the 
stamp act, they solemnly signed the necessary papers. 
As they had been empowered to do this, the colonies 
they represented became by the act, as was said, " a 
bundle of sticks that could neither be bent nor 
broken." You may be sure that there was not a word 
in the papers that these earnest men signed that they 



1765.] THE PLACID ALBANIANS. 3I 

had not weighed widi the greatest care. They did 
not know what the result was to be, but they beheved 
that, whatever might come, they were rigJit. 

While the debate was going on it was said that a 
vessel bearing stamps had arrived in port. Imme- 
diately the ships in the beautiful harbor lowered their 
flags in sign of sorrow. During the following night 
placards were posted upon the corners of the streets, 
filled with threats against the men, whoever they 
might be, who should have anything to do with the 
stamped paper. " We will not submit to the stamp 
act on any account," the people declared. " The 
spirit of Brutus and Cassius is still alive," they said, 
remembering, perhaps, those daring words of Patrick 
Henry, which he so suddenly changed. 

Albany was at this time a town of some five thou- 
sand inhabitants. They showed more plainly than 
others the inherited traits of their ancestors. Their 
houses were of the Dutch pattern, of brick or stone, 
and stood with their gables to the streets, each having 
a litde piece of green garden about it. The placid 
Albanians sat on their porches, or " stoops," as they 
called them, and enjoyed their pipes, or conversed 
with their equally placid neighbors. Their habits 



32 WEALTH INCREASING IN NEW YORK. 

were simple, their morals good, and their principles 
almost as rigid as those of the New-Englanders. 

New York city, though at a very early period 
the center of the general trade of the country, was 
smaller than either Boston or Philadelphia. It was 
about three times the size of Albany. Many 
houses resembled those at Albany, but there were 
also not a few modern dwellings of great preten- 
sion. The people were rapidly accumulating wealth, 
and society was growing in polish as well as in a 
cosmopolitan character. It was the gayest place in 
America. The people of the higher classes dressed 
with care. The gentlemen wore silks and velvets 
of gay colors, and the ladies powdered their hair. 
The gentlemen wore wigs and carried swords. 

They made holidays of many of the popular Dutch 
festal days, such as Christmas and New-Year's, St. 
Valentine's Day and St. Nicholas' Day. Besides these, 
there were Easter and May-Day, which were cele- 
brated with great zest. 

As in all the other colonies, there were Ro)'alists 
or Tories in New York, who were strongly attached 
to the party of the king, and there was a considerable 
number of persons who hated England, as those who 



NEW YORK PATRIOTIC. 33 

have been conquered hate their conquerors. Between 
these extremes were others who cared Httle about 
pohtics, provided they were permitted to Hve in peace. 
These were all ready to side with the American party, 
when it was evident that it was strong and popular. 
They took sides with it now. 




CHAPTER VI. 



THE NEIGHBORS IN BOSTON. 




congress were not all 



HE members of the 
-villing to sign the papers that had been 
igreed to. One from Massachusetts and 
one from New Jersey refused. When the people of 
New Jersey learned that Mr. Ogden, their representa- 
tive, had not affixed his name, they made an image 
of him and hanored it as a token of the disq^race that 
they felt. 

There were many other good men who thought 
that old things were precious, and disliked to give 
them up. They had always been ruled by a king ; 
they had been taught that he should be obeyed ; and 
they were very slow to believe that he could do 
wrong. 

There are two sorts of people everywhere ; those 

34 



SAMUEL A-DAMS OF BOSTON TOWN. 35 

who want to improve the world, and those who think 
best to keep affairs as they are. One side has great 
respect for what their fathers have done, and for all 
that is old ; and the other is just as earnestly looking- 
for something better in the future. There is good 
on both sides, and we cannot believe that either one 
is entirely right, and the other entirely wrong. 

There were more men who wished to hold to 
the king in the vSouth than in the North ; and the 
two parties were more nearly equal in the Middle 
States than anywhere else. In Massachusetts the 
feeling against royalty at this time was intense. The 
man there who had perhaps the most influence in 
guiding the utterances of the people was Samuel 
Adams. He was a native of Boston town, a graduate 
of Harvard College, and most careful in performing 
all religious duties, according to the strictest rules 
of the Puritan church. He fully believed that 
America had a share in the king of England, but 
was independent of English law-makers. When he 
appeared in Cambridge to speak his part, before tak- 
ing the degree of Master of Arts, he argued that it 
is lawful to resist the king, if the commonwealth can- 
not be preserved in any other way. He was poor, 



36 DILIGENT NEW-ENGLANDERS. 

hard-working, and temperate, and had a judicious 
wife, who helped him in the way that good wives 
always help their husbands. When Samuel Adams 
made up his mind it was not easy to cause him 
change it. 

The people of Boston were like the other New-> 
Englanders in most respects. They all felt that God 
had sifted England to send the choicest of its people 
over Into the wilderness, as one of the old ministers 
had said. There was a good deal of truth in this ; 
for, as we know, there never was such an emigration 
to America as that under John Winthrop. Their 
soil was not so fertile as that of the other colonies ; it 
was necessary for them to work harder for a living ; 
but they did not mind that, — they loved to work 
hard. 

They went into every kind of business, and vis- 
itors from Europe were surprised to see that they 
were engaged in so man)' sorts of trade and manu- 
facture. They made a good living, and even grew 
rich. No colony was so independent, or so nearly 
able to support itself without sending to England 
for anything, as New England was. This made the 
people simple in dress and manners ; and it also 



IMPORTANCE OF NEW ENGLAND TOWNS. 2>7 

made them pretty confident that they could manage 
their own affairs aright without any advice from the 
king, — or, in fact, from any one. The people of 
New England were more nearly pure English than 
those of the other colonies, and this gave society 
more evenness. When men moved, they were apt 
to move in the same direction. 

There is another peculiar feature of New England 
life which is worthy of special note. The states were 
divided into small portions called towns, the inhab- 
itants of which governed themselves by means of 
"selectmen" and other officers, chosen once a year. 
The voters were ready to be called together at any 
time to attend to whatever business might come 
up. Every man in New England thus had a share 
with his neighbors in public affairs, and when all the 
towns chose to act together their power was very 
great. This made them familiar with public business, 
and taught them to discuss affairs and to form 
opinions. 



CHAPTER VII. 



TUMULTS EVERYWHERE. 




HE Stamp act was to take effect on the 
first of November, 1765. The governor of 
Massachusetts told the legislature, which 
was then in session, that the country was on the 
brink of a precipice. Samuel Adams replied that 
the representatives of the people were aware of the 
danger, and would use all prudence to prevent ruin. 
This was certainly true ; but there was not a man 
among them all who was willing to give up for 
an instant the principle that the king must not tax 
the colonies without their consent, and that he must 
not make their laws. 

The legislature passed some resolutions prepared 
by Adams, and the English people when they read 
them said they were the ravings of a parcel of 



PLUCK OF THE NEW YORK MERCHANTS. 39 

wild people carried away by their feelings. They 
said, "The stamps shall be distributed." It was 
English acrainst EnoHsh, for the Americans were 
mostly of pure English blood ; and they were as 
determined as any Englishman could be. 

On the last day of October all the king's gov- 
ernors in America took oaths to carry out the 
stamp act. They did not know what was coming ; 
they did not ask, " What shall we do if no one 
will distribute the stamps ? " The British merchants 
had already been frightened when they heard that 
America might one day be independent, for much 
money was due them from Americans. It would 
have been hard for them to be obliged to stop selling 
their goods to the colonists, and it would not have 
been agreeable for the colonists to be unable to buy 
any of the goods that were made in England. No 
matter ; the Americans were not to be stopped in 
their plans by such thoughts. 

New York, the great city of commerce, wrote 
to the English merchants not to send any more 
goods, — no, not even to send those that had already 
been ordered, until the stamp act should be repealed. 
They formed a strong committee to write to all 



40 



A DULL FIRST OF NOVLMBER. 



the Other colonies, asking them to do the Hkc. They 
woukl not wear clothes made of English goods, if 
they were forced to use sheep-skins with the wool 
on, " Give me liberty, or give me death ! " Patrick 
Henry had said; and they added, "All the power 
of Great Britain shall not oblige us to submit to 
the stamp act ! " " We will die upon the place 
first ! " 

When the sun rose on the morning of Novem- 
ber first the guns sullenly sounded every minute, 
and the bells, which rang with muffled tongues, 
told the story of resistance. The flags floated at 
half-mast ; and every indication was made that the 
people from Carolina to Maine had made up their 
minds to something. What that something was 
every one knew ; even the children stopped their 
games and ran gayly along the city streets crying 
out in chorus, *' Liberty, Property, and no Stamps ! " 
Was there ever such a time? 

When the gentlemen took up tlieir newspapers 
that morning — it was a Friday — they did not 
bear the stamp that the new law demanded should 
be upon every one. They were filled with rejoicings 
that the people were united against the act ; they 



EFFIGIES OF THE GOVERNOR AND SATAN. 4I 

Spoke of the anger that it had aroused, and of the 
blessings of Hberty which could only be retained 
by resistance. 

The city of New York rose up as one man ; the 
sailors left their ships and thronged the streets ; 
placards at the corners uttered threats against any 
one who should deliver a stamp, or stop his busi- 
ness in any way because the law^ required one. 
They frightened the governor, whom they called 
"the Drummer," because he had held that office 
at home once, and he fled to a fort, where he 
protected himself with marines called from a ship- 
of-war. He w^as wise to flee ; the excitement was 
so great that his life was really in danger. 

In the evening two images, one of the governor 
and the other of Satan, w^ere carried by a mob 
through the streets with many torches, quite to the 
"■ate of the fort ; but the crowd retired without doino;- 
more than frighten the governor again. It was a 
dark night, with not a breath of wind, and , the 
lights were very fine to the eyes of those who hated 
the king-. The crovernor's coach and sleio-hs, and the 
images of the governor and Satan, were burned on 
the Bowling Green before the very eyes of the 
persons in the fort. 



42 MAJOR JAMKS MOBBED. 

There was an artillery officer, Major James, who 
was understood to have said that he would force the 
people of New York with five hundred of his men. 
When the mob had finished the bonfire of the coach 
and effigies, a rush was made for this officer's house. 
He lived at the Vaux Hall, as it was called, an estate 
reaching from the present Warren street to Chambers 
street on the Hudson River. 

In less than ten minutes the soldiers that were 
found there were driven out, and the fine mansion 
was emptied of its looking-glasses, mahogany tables, 
silver, curtains, library of books, and all the feather- 
beds, china, and furniture. The mob drank the 
major's wine, destroyed his beef, threw his butter 
about, and burned everything they could, except one 
red silk curtain, which they kept to make military 
colors of. It was not long before the governor, hear- 
ing that thousands were waiting to attack him if he 
did not act as the people wished, promised to have 
nothing to do with the stamps, but to ship them all 
back to London. Then the mob went peaceably to 
their homes, and the stamp act riot in New York 
was over. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



A PALTRY TAX ON TEA. 




HEN King- George the Third heard that the 
stamp act, which was a favorite of his, had 
been resisted, — in fact, that it was not 
allowed to go into effect anywhere, — he was very 
wroth. He was an obstinate, self-willed man, very 
fond of authorit)^ and especially determined that 
his subjects, English and American, should not share 
his power. He was not a good king for England 
at that time. 

The people of the mother-country were not truly 
represented by the rulers. From the king down, those 
in authority lacked the kind feeling for their American 
brethren that was felt by most of the middle class of 
Englishmen. Britons generally loved liberty quite as 
much as the Americans, and they professed to like 

43 



44 ' PITT AND 15UUKE STEAK OUT. [1766. 

fair pla)'. They did not all, or most of them, think 
tliat the stamp act was ri<^du, and there were not 
wanting men among them who dared to speak out 
plainly in favor of repealing it. 

William Pitt was one of these outspoken men. 
He made a great speech in Parliament, in which he 
said, " I shall never own the justice of taxing America 
internally, until she enjoys the right of representa- 
tion I rejoice that America has resisted." 

The great orator, Edmund Burke, w^as another. The 
result of the discussion in parliament was that the 
stamp act was repealed in 1766. It had interrupted 
commerce, and made it almost certain that British 
merchants could not collect American debts so long 
as it endured ; it had stopped manufactures in Man- 
chester, thrown thousands of men out of employment, 
and threatened to ruin both countries. 

The king at last signed the repeal reluctantly. 
} le was applauded by the multitude with shouts and 
huzzas, the bells were rung, and the ships on the 
Thames displayed all their flags ; at night there was 
a bonfire, and the city of London was illuminated. 
So great was the relief felt in the capital. Swift 
messeneers carried the news all over the kiniidom, 



1768.] BRITSH TROOPS SENT TO BOSTON. 45 

and the provincial towns rejoiced. When it reached 
our country in May, the same tokens of joy were 
repeated ; but the triumph w^as not to endure long 
there. 

In repealing the stamp act the government de- 
clared that it still held the right to tax America in 
that way. The very next year parliament determined 
to send troops to America, and passed an act laying 
a tax upon tea, glass, paper, and other articles im- 
ported into the colonies. The salaries of the king's 
governors were to be paid from the proceeds of 
this tax. Troops had before this been placed in 
New York, Boston, and other towns, and the citizens 
had been forced to pay for their accommodations. 

While the country was in this state of excitement, 
in 1768, the king's governor in Massachusetts sent 
to Halifax for troops. At the same time courtiers 
in London were demanding that more troops should 
be sent to America, " to reduce the dogs to reason," 
as they said. The soldiers arrived in Boston, and 
maddened the people by marching through the streets 
with fixed bayonets. The citizens refused to provide 
quarters for them, and supplied themselves with arms, 
" in case of a war with France," they declared ! They 



46 THE JUDICIOUS WASHINGTON SPEAKS. [1769. 

determined that they would spend their last drop of 
blood before they would be forced by the king and 
his governors to do their bidding. The other colonies 
joined in like declarations ; Virginia, Delaware, Penn- 
sylvania, and all the southern colonies followed. 
George Washington, the calm and judicious Virginian, 
said that something must be done or the lordly 
masters in Britain would take all freedom away from 
America. Arms should be the last resort, he thought, 
but no man ought to hesitate to use even them, in 
case of necessity. 

The soldiers quartered in Boston naturally irritated 
the citizens by their presence in the streets, and on 
the fifth of March, 1770, there was a slight affray, 
known afterward as the " Boston Massacre." The 
troops fired on the people, killing five and wounding 
others. Immediately the bells were rung in the 
churches, drums beat, and the cry "To arms! to 
arms ! " was heard on all sides. 

The next day there was a meeting in Faneuil Hall, 
and the governor was asked to remove the soldiers. 
He refused. The people met again, in larger num- 
bers this time, in the South meeting-house. The 
streets were crowded ; the demand was repeated ; 



1773.] rHILADELPIIIA WILL NOT RECEIVE TEA. 4/ 

and Adams with Hancock and others went to see 
the governor. He refused at first, but, remembering- 
the fate of Andros, he gave way at last. The soldiers 
were withdrawn, after having been obliged to see the 
funeral of the victims of the " Massacre." They were 
filled with anger, for they felt that they had been 
treated with marked contempt. 

Meantime arrangements had been made for ship- 
ping tea from England to New York, Boston, Charles- 
ton, and Philadelphia, under the provisions of the tax 
law. The price was to be made very low, in order 
to tempt buyers. The people of Philadelphia met 
in October, 1773, and declared that all who attempted 
to receive or pay the tax on tea were enemies of the 
country. The agents appointed to collect the tax 
resigned. 

New York resolved that the tea should not be 
landed. In November, Boston adopted the resolu- 
tions of Philadelphia, in a town-meeting. A few 
days later a swift-sailing ship arrived with the news 
that the tea had already left England. The men of 
Cambridge came together and adopted the Phila- 
delphia resolutions, and then voted that they were 
ready to stand by Boston in any emergency. 



48 BOSTON WILL NOT RECEIVE TEA. [1773. 

There was a great meeting in Faneuil Hall. Men 
came from all the towns about. The hall was too 
small, and they went to the South meeting-house. 
It was voted that the tea should not be allowed to 
land, but should be sent back to England. The 
vessels were watched when they arrived ; swift riders 
were prepared to carry the news to the other towns, 
should an attempt be made to land the tea. 

Twenty days were allowed the owner of the tea 
to get ready to return. Day after day passed, and 
still the tea remained at the dock. Meantime other 
towns offered to unite with Boston in its determi- 
nation. Lexington, Worcester, and the villag^es be- 
tween, were on the tiptoe, anxious to send men to 
the interesting scene. The last day arrived. 

There was a meeting in the South church. Five 
thousand had crowded about the building before ; 
now there were seven thousand. No such meeting 
had been known in the colonies. The shipowner 
could not get a permit to sail with the tea ; and the 
king's governor had the guns of the fort in the harbor 
pointed in such a way that the ship could not pass 
without it. The assembly voted again that the tea 
should not be landed. It grew dark early on that 



1773.] TEA POURED INTO BOSTON HARBOR. 49 

December afternoon ; the church was dimly hghted. 
Samuel Adams rose and said, "This meeting can 
do nothing more to save the country ! " 

On the moment, a body of forty or more men 
dressed as Indians shouted a warwhoop at the porch ; 
Adams and Hancock encouraged them, and they went 
to the wharf. The tea-ships were quietly taken 
possession of, and all the tea was poured from the 
chests into the bay. There was no disorder, and 
when the work was done the stillness of a New 
England Sabbath rested upon the town. 

The next morning Paul Revere and others saddled 
their horses and hurried off post-haste for New Y^ork 
and Philadelphia, to let the patriots there know how 
the tea question had been setded in Boston. South 
Carolina heard it ; and the tea destined for the cups 
of her fair dames was seized, and molded in the 
cellars where it was stored. 

The colonies were now joined in a single cause ; 
and no words of jealousy could be heard from Caro- 
lina to Massachusetts, above the cry for " Union." 



CHAPTER IX. 

A NATION FOUNDED IN THE CARPENTERS' HALL. 

E may be sure that there was something 
serious the matter when George Washing- 
ton, who was one of the coolest of men, 




was moved to make the remarks that have been 
mentioned. We cannot reahze the excitement of 
those days. Men were moving about the country 
everywhere asking themseh^es what w^as to be the 
outcome of the doings of the kinor and his orovern- 

o o o 

ors ! Conventions were held, and messages were 
sent from colony to colony. In North Carolina 
men were forminor bands called " Recrulators," who 
professed to be loyal to the king, but protested 
against their wrongs. In New York, Massachusetts, 
and elsewhere, others organized themselves as 
" Sons of Liberty " who proposed a union of the 
50 



PATRICK HENRY'S CONFIDENCE. 5 1 

provinces. All the while the royalists were holding- 
up their hands and asking in horror how weak colo- 
nists could dare to stand against an anointed kino-! 

Some one asked Patrick Henry at this time if he 
thought the colonists could cope with the mother- 
country in war ; and he replied that he doubted 
if they could. "But," said he, "do you suppose 
that France and Spain and Holland, enemies 
of Great Britain, will stand quietly by and see 
us crushed, if we make a declaration of indepen- 
dence ? Will Louis the Sixteenth be asleep at a 
time when he can fight for us against his enemy 
and our unnatural mother?" He was sure that 
these nations would stand up for the colonists, that 
independence would be established, and that America 
would take her place among nations. 

The British did not feel any alarm. They 
thought that with a little army they could march 
through America and bring all the colonists to their 
knees. They tried the plan. General Thomas Gage, 
who had been commander of the English forces in 
America, was made governor of Massachusetts also. 
He was sent to Boston to shut up the port, thus 
keeping all ships from going in or out; and and to 



52 THE PORT OF BOSTON SHUT UP. [1774. 

punish Samuel Adams, and the other ringleaders. 
Much new power was given to Gage, and as he 
happened to have his headquarters in Boston, that 
town became the center of interest, though it is 
difficult to see how it could have been otherwise, 
since such men as Adams and Otis and others 
lived there. Though something had been done to 
irritate every colony, the king reserved his severest 
blows for Massachusetts, and especially for its capital. 

The port of Boston was shut up ; it was declared 
that no ships should go in nor come out of it ; the 
charter of Massachusetts was changed by an act of 
parliament, and it was ordered that any of the king's 
officers who might be guilty of the crime of mur- 
der should be sent to Nova Scotia or England to 
be tried. It was intended to starve the people, to 
put them at the mercy of English soldiers, and 
thus force them to submit. This was not the effect. 
The other colonies thought that if the king did such 
things to Massachusetts, he might at any time do 
the same to them. They agreed to stand together. 
It was hard for Boston at best, but it would have 
been death to her if she had not been supported. 

In studying this period of our history, we must 



1774.] NEW YORK WANTS A CONGRESS. 53 

not foreet that all Encrlishmen did not think with the 
king, and that all Americans even did not feel sure 
that the colonists were right. It was decided that 
there should be a general congress at Philadelphia, 
but man}^ opposed it. The men who disapproved the 
moyements against the king were called Tories or 
Royalists. John Adams said they were considered 
the most despicable animals in the creation. Many of 
them were rich, and lived in fine houses. Some were 
officers of the king's government, and many were 
men who considered the colonists rash in trying 
to break away from the good arrangements of the 
past. 

New York asked for a congress, and was thought 
by George the Third to be almost as bad as Massa- 
chusetts in its opposition to his government. Still, 
there were many Tories in New York, and the con- 
test was very bitter. They wanted no congress. In 
Virginia a fast was held when the Boston Port Bill 
went into operation, though the timid and the rich 
took the side of the king. Still, the Southern States 
agreed with Virginia In approving the congress. The 
king's party was the strongest in Pennsylvania, and 
there were many moderate patriots who held with It. 



54 THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. [1774. 

The English, and the American Royalists, still 
hoped that the congress, when it came together, 
would not be united in supporting the cause of the 
patriots. Here again they were mistaken. From the 
king down, the officers of the government did not 
understand the temper of the Americans. On ^the 
side of the Americans it was different, for Franklin 
watched every movement in London and reported it. 

We must now imagine fifty-five delegates travel- 
ing from twelve of the colonies toward Philadelphia, 
in the month of August, 1774. They rode on horse- 
back or sailed in boats, unless the distance was short 
and the roads good enough to allow them to take 
a chaise or a stage-coach. The journey of the four 
delegates from Massachusetts occupied three weeks. 
It reminds us of that of Columbus when he went from 
Seville to Barcelona. It was a triumphal progress. 
A proud escort started with them. Feasts were given 
in their honor, at diftercnt places through which they 
passed ; crowds met them as they entered the towns, 
and thronged after them as they left to speed them 
on their way. How the hearts of the patriotic 
people all along the route throbbed as they thought 
of the important meeting that was soon to be held! 



1774.1 THE NATION IS BORN. 55 

The delegates had been well selected. John 
Adams wrote to his wife that they were the greatest 
men on the continent in ability, virtue, and fortune. 
They were very much divided in religious opinions, 
but all agreed that it would be well to open their 
sessions with prayer, and an Episcopal rector read 
the Psalms for the seventh day of the month, after 
w^hich he prayed. One of these Psalms is very ap- 
propriate to express the feelings of earnest people 
in trouble. They met in the Carpenters' Hall. 

Day after day the congress met, and very patiendy 
its members studied the matters before them. They 
drew up a Declaration of Rights ; agreed not to send 
any goods to England nor to receive any from there ; 
and to discontinue the trade in slaves. They then 
drew up an address to the people of England, a 
memorial to the inhabitants of British America, and 
an address to the king. On the twentieth of October 
they signed papers forming themselves into an Ameri- 
can Association ; and that may be called the birthday 
of the American Nation, for all the subsequent acts 
which led to independence flowed from it. Before 
the members separated they agreed to have another 
congress in May, 1775. 



CHAPTER X. 

WHAT GENERAL GAGE WAS DOING. 

I *p^T*|| H I LE the congress was sitting in Philadel^^hia 
r^^^m General Gage was not idle. He was sure 
ll^'^^^^^^ll now that the Americans were in earnest. 
He saw that he might need powder, and on die 
first day of September sent an armed force up the 
Mystic River to a point on the edge of Cambridge 
where the province stored its supply. Two hundred 
and fifty barrels were seized and carried away, and 
two pieces of ordnance were also taken from Cam- 
bridge itself. 

The country was aroused. Four thousand of 
the freeholders and farmers, the most sturdy and 
reputable of the community, appeared on the square 
at Charlestown to protest against militar}' inter- 
ference. Three thousand men gathered about the 

56 



THE OBSTINATE KING'S PLAN. 57 

elegant mansion of Lieutenant-Governor Oliver at 
Cambridge, and forced him to resign his office. 
General Gage was soon convinced that if the king 
was determined to control New England a large 
force would be needed. 

In England, Franklin was pleading with the min- 
isters in behalf of his native land. At the same time 
meetinors were held in London, Bristol, Glasgow, 
Liverpool, Manchester, Norwich, Birmingham, and in 
other places that would be sure to suffer by a war in 
America, and petitions were sent to parliament. The 
ministers considered the subject, and then determined 
to subdue America by force and starvation ; and by 
internal disunion, which it was hoped to stir up, 
though, as we have seen, every attempt to separate 
the colonies had driven them closer together. 

An English historian calls this " a time of national 
shame," and doubtless many of his nation living in 
the midst of the excitements of the day held the same 
opinion. To the obstinacy of the ministers and of 
the king we owe it that our nation was born. Had 
Archbishop Laud not persecuted the Puritans be- 
fore, had George the Third not pressed the patriots of 
the time we are now considering, we migfht still be 



58 GAGE'S MUD WALLS ON BOSTON NECK. [1774. 

Englishmen, living under the queen, instead of being 
self-governing Americans. 

After the congress had adjourned, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, Massachusetts, and other colonies, formed 
militia companies, under officers that they chose them- 
selves. In Virginia, Washington was the leader in 
this movement. He had had experience in the old 
French war, and was prepared for such work. 

There was a convention at Richmond in March, 
1775, at which Patrick Henry spoke with his usual 
fire. " Gentlemen," he said, " may cry Peace ! peace ! 
but there is no peace ! The war has actually begun. 
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring 
to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our 

brethren are already in the field I know not 

what course others may take, but as for me, give 
me liberty, or give me death ! " 

General Gage had in September, 1774, thrown 
up earthworks across the narrow isthmus called 
Boston Neck, which was the only connection with the 
mainland. The workmen refused to help him. The 
Americans who had been to Louisburg, and remem- 
bered its capture, condemned these earthworks. 
*' Gage's mud walls arc nothing to old Louisburg's," 



1775.] THE MASSACRE CELEBRATED AGAIN. 59 

they said, and the thought gave them courage at the 
begnmuig, as well as throughout the war that fol- 
lowed. It was evident that Gage anticipated trouble. 
The people about Boston had the same expectation. 
They carried their powder off to Concord, covering it, 
and the ammunition that they were able to collect, 
under rubbish, which appeared to be the only load 
the carts contained. 

Gage found out where these things had gone, and 
determined to capture them. Meantime the men 
of Boston had been excited by another event. The 
anniversary of the "Boston Massacre" had come 
around in March, 1775, and Joseph Warren for the 
second time delivered an address. The South church 
was the place of meeting. Samuel Adams presided. 
The crowd was so great that Warren was able to 
get inside only by climbing through a window. 

There were British soldiers present. Warren said 
that independence was not what America wanted. 
She wished that Britain and the colonies might grow 
together like the oak and the ivy. Still, if England 
would not let them have peace, the Americans were 
ready to press through seas of blood. It was voted 
to celebrate the "Massacre" in the same way the 



6o FAUL RKVERE AND HIS LANTERNS. [1775. 

next year. When this vote was passed, the British 
soldiers hissed. 

On Sunday, April i6, it was learned by Warren 
that Gage was putting boats in order that had been 
laid up all winter. He sent Paul Revere to Lexington 
to tell John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were 
there, that a move was about to be made. When he 
rode back, Revere told the people whom he met that 
he would find out whether the troops of Gage were 
to go by land or by water, and let them know. There 
was a body of about thirty men, mostly mechanics, 
who had been watching military movements all the 
winter. They met at the Green Dragon tavern, near 
the present Haymarket Square, where a lodge of 
Masons also met. They were so anxious lest their 
consultations should become known, that they each 
swore on the Bible at every meeting not to let them 
out except to Hancock, Adams, and a few other 
patriots. 

Revere had agreed that if the British were to go 
out by water, he would hang two lanterns in the 
steeple of a certain church ; and if by land, one ; 
for he thought it might be difficult for him to get 
across the Charles River to Charlestown to tell the 



1775.] PAUL REVERE ON THE DEACON'S HORSE. 6l 

patriots there. On the evening of the eighteenth 
it was found that soldiers were marching toward the 
bottom of the Common ; and at ten o'clock, Dr. 
Warren sent for Revere and asked him to set off in 
haste for Lexington, to warn Hancock and Adams. 

You may be sure that Revere was just as ready 
to go as Warren was to have him. He went first to 
see a friend, and asked him to put out both the 
lanterns ; then he caught up his riding-boots and 
overcoat, and got another friend to set him across. 
The moon was just rising. They rowed very near 
one of the British ships, but were not observed. 

The friends were all ready ; they had seen the 
signals, and Deacon Larkin loaned Revere his horse 
for the ride. Just as the sun had gone down that 
afternoon ten officers had been met oroino- alono^ the 
Lexington road, and Revere felt that he must hasten. 
He also felt that his ride was perhaps to be a dan- 
gerous one. It was very dangerous. 

Revere dashed away over Charlestown Neck, and 
had not gone far before he met two officers, who 
tried to stop him ; but he was too quick for them, 
and kept on toward Medford and Arlington, then 
Menotom)-, waking the " minute-men " all along the 



62 THE BATTLE AT LEXINGTON. [1775. 

way, and telling them that the enemy might soon be 
expected by the direct route across Charles River. 

The British soldiers crossed from a point about 
where the Public Garden now lies, which was then 
water, and took up their route toward Lexington. 
Though they had taken every precaution to keep 
their movement secret, they soon found that the 
country had been aroused. The officer in command, 
therefore, sent back for more men, and at the same 
time ordered some marines who formed a part of 
his forces to advance at a more rapid pace than 
the whole number could march. These marines 
were in command of a major named Pitcairn, They 
arrived at Lexington at daylight. The militia there 
had been warned at two that morning by the 
ringing of the meeting-house bell, and there they 
stood on the green before the sacred building con- 
fronting the British troops as they approached. 

Major Pitcairn commanded the Americans to dis- 
perse, but they would not. He then ordered his 
men to fire. Seven Americans were killed, and nine 
wounded. The British hurried on to Concord. 
There they encountered the men who had been 
called from the villages and farms around. They 



1775.] RUNNING BACK TO BOSTON. 6^ 

met at the bridge, where the Americans had the 
advantage of a sHght hill. The invaders finding the 
village empty of its protectors, robbed the dwell- 
ings, burned the liberty-pole, and ruined two can- 
nons. They then went on to where the Americans 
stood. The combatants emptied their guns twice, 
and the battle of Concord was over. 

The British began a hurried retreat, which did 
not end until the weary survivors of the army that 
started out in the morning somewhat gayly found 
themselves safe under the protection of Boston 
again. The soldiers that had been sent for were 
met on the way, but there was nothing for them to 
do but join the retreat. As they hurried back they 
were opposed by the Americans who had gathered 
to protect their homes, and every stone fence became 
a fortress, from behind which volleys were poured 
upon the beaten British. 

The Americans now protected themselves by 
shutting the British up in Boston so securely that 
they could not possibly get out. Almost before they 
had got there, an army of freemen had been gath- 
ered in Cambridge. Orders were given that Harvard 
College should be removed to Concord, and the 



64 THE WHOLE COUNTRY AROUSED. [1775. 

library to Andover, so that the buildings might be 
used as barracks for the soldiers. 

Not Boston only was roused ; the whole country 
soon knew what had been done. James Madison 
and others in Virginia said that a blow at Massa- 
chusetts was an attack on \Trginia, and on every 
other colony. Israel Putnam in Connecticut left his 
plow in the furrow and hurried to Boston ; John 
Stark, too, in New Hampshire, left everything be- 
hind and hastened to the conflict. At the same 
time many patriots moved from Boston, and Tories 
and " moderate " men found their dwellings in the 
country towns uncomfortable, surrounded as they 
were with a dense atmosphere of opposition to the 
king whom they honored in spite of his unlovely 
traits. 

The Friends in Pennsylvania took up arms ; the 
men of New York unloaded sloops that were ready 
to carry supplies to the British at Boston. The 
country was thoroughly united. Before man)- months 
all the royal governors were out of office. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE BATTLE ON BUNKER'S HILL. 




N the fifth of May FrankHn* reached Phila- 
delphia from London. He had concluded 
that he could do no more for his country 
abroad. The next day he v/as elected a member of 
the congress that was to meet on the tenth. Mean- 
time the men of Vermont had planned an attack on 
Ticonderoga, which had cost the British vast sums 
to fortify, and upon Crown Point. Both were taken. 
One on the tenth of May, and the other on the 
twelfth. 

It had been discovered in England that Gage was 
a " lukewarm coward," and accordingly three generals 
were sent out to help him. They were Howe, Clinton, 
and Burgoyne, known among the wits of Boston as 
" the three bow-wows." They came with their rods 

6s 



66 THE BRITISH TWICE REPULSED. [1775. 

and lines expecting to find sport in the wild New 
World ; but they landed in a besieged city, from which 
they could not stir. It was the 25th of May, 

It was necessary that the British should have more 
freedom, and they planned "to extend their lines. 
They proposed to move toward Charlestown on the 
eighteenth of June ; but the Americans knew it, and 
sent a thousand men to fortify Bunker's Hill. They 
left Cambridge Common, after listening to a prayer 
from the president of the college, and when the sun 
rose the next morning the British found an earthwork 
looking down upon Boston. Behind it were the 
worn-out Americans. 

Gage saw that this must be taken, and ordered 
an assault. Twice his veterans rushed against the 
poorly equipped and fatigued Americans, and twice 
they were repulsed. Then the powder of the Ameri- 
cans gave out, and they were obliged to retreat. 
The British had lost more than twice as many as the 
Americans, and had learned again that they could 
not overcome them without a great effort. The 
Americans were fighting for their homes, and that 
made them strong. The British did not have such 
an incentive to do battle. 



1775.] LACK OF A CENTRAL POWER. 6/ 

In some respects this battle decided the result 
of the long struggle between the people and their 
stubborn king. The Americans learned to have con- 
fidence in themselves ; and the British found that 
they had no mean foe to fight. They remembered, 
too, that it was not safe to attack a body of Americans 
when they were protected by a redoubt. 

The battle resulted in the loss of the brave Joseph 
Warren. His patriotic voice was never again to 
rouse the feelings of the populace from the pulpit 
of the South Church, or in Faneuil Hall. He had 
been a leader in counsel, and in spite of his modesty, 
which would not allow him to take command, though 
both Prescott and Putnam had asked him to, he had 
been a leader also in the dreadful conflict. 

The conduct of public affairs was most difficult 
at this time. The Massachusetts House of Repre- 
sentatives had in October, 1774, formed itself into 
a " Provincial Congress," making its headquarters at 
Concord, and choosing John Hancock president. It 
was a body without power. It could advise, but 
could not carry out its own advice. Everything de- 
pended upon the free will of the people. It asked 
them to form military companies, but it could not pay 



68 AN UNTRUSTWORTHY ARMY. [1775. 

the men. It wanted to supply guns and powder, but 
it had no funds. No wonder Gage thought it was 
an "unlawful assembly." Certainly it was; but it 
was the best sort of government that could be formed 
at the moment. 

Samuel Adams came to this body from the Conti- 
nental Congress at Philadelphia, and reported what 
had been done. That congress had no more power 
than the one in Massachusetts ; but what one did the 
other agreed to. There always was union, we remem- 
ber, in times of danger. 

Still, it was hard to keep the army together. 
The men were not used to serving under others. 
When a man wanted provisions or clothing, he was 
apt to go home to get them. If his business required 
his attention, he went to see to it. There were 
many reasons why good men, who knew little of the 
hard regularity of the soldier's life, should make ster- 
ling fighters, but still be untrustworthy as an army. 
It was poor material in this respect, though so far 
as spirit and determination went it could not be 
equaled. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE HERO FROM VIRGINIA. 




N the day that the " Green Mountain Boys," 
led by Ethan Allen, took Ticonderoga, the 
second Continental Congress met at Phila- 
delphia. Franklin was there, and George Washing- 
ton ; Patrick Henry and John Jay ; John and Samuel 
Adams ; Richard Henry Lee, and Robert Livingston. 
Thomas Jefferson was soon to be a member. They 
formed a committee of twelve colonies. They were 
chosen for indefinite terms of service ; they had the 
most uncertain instructions or none at all. 

I have just told you they had no power. Yet 
upon them now rested the protection of three mil- 
lions of people, as they struggled with a nation 
that was mistress of the seas, and second to none 
on the land. The gentlemen who came into In- 

69 



70 A STRANGE MIXTURE OF MEN. [1775. 

dependence Hall in the spring of 1775 must have 
felt the solemnity of the occasion. They were 
united on but one subject, — the protection of their 
homes. On almost every other matter they differed. 

There were the Friends, who were opposed to 
war ; the Presbyterians, who thought it a matter o( 
conscience to fight against oppression ; the Separa- 
tists, who had already taken the head from one 
king, and would not hesitate to repeat the operation 
upon another if need were. There were English 
and Irish, Hollanders and Germans ; Swedes and 
Frenchmen ; Protestants and Catholics. Besides this, 
the Protestants were separated into bodies holding 
many different creeds. It must have seemed a 
strange mixture to a beholder on the other side of 
the sea, where society was accurately defined. 

What was the object of this body? It had met 
before to talk of peace ; now it met to plan for 
war. Massachusetts had taken up arms. The con- 
gress approved its action, and was soon to accept 
its forces as the American or Continental army ; 
but it did not even then wish for war nor inde- 
pendence. 

It wanted peace and amity to continue between 



1775.] MASSACHUSETTS ASKS FOR A GENERAL. /I 

the mother-country and the colonies. It was care- 
ful to recognize the royal government at New York, 
which still existed ; though it approved the war 
against a similar o^overnment in Massachusetts. 
When news of the capture of Ticonderoga reached 
Philadelphia, a week after it had taken place. Con- 
gress was embarrassed, because the affair had oc- 
curred within the limits of New York. 

While matters were in this undecided state, a 
letter was received from Massachusetts, asking it to 
take the direction of the army, and to appoint a 
general. The men of Massachusetts were all look- 
ing toward the great Virginian. 

John Adams made a speech, in which he explained 
the condition of the army at Boston, and nominated 
Washington to be its general. Samuel Adams fol- 
lowed ureinor the same man. On the fifteenth of 
June, Washington was chosen by the votes of all the 
delegates. The next day the great man appeared, 
and with much modesty, but with evidence of feel- 
ing, said that he would accept the position and 
exert every power he possessed to support the 
"glorious cause," as he expressed it. The day after 
this all the delegates voted that they would sup- 



72 WASHINGTON HEARS OF BUNKER HILL. [1775. 

port the new general " with their hves and fortunes." 
Thus the leader was found, and thus was he com- 
missioned to take special care that the liberties of 
America should suffer no detriment, 

Washington took no time to prepare for his work, 
but almost immediately started on horseback for 
Boston, or rather Cambridge, where the army was 
encamped. He had the company of some of his 
officers. Here was another great "progress." The 
people turned out in large numbers to welcome the 
chieftain. 

Just after Washington and his party had left Phila- 
delphia, on the twenty-third of June, they met a 
courier with particulars about the battle of Bunker 
Hill, of which they had heard rumors the day before. 
Washington enquired eagerly if the militia acted well. 
He was told that they stood their ground bravely, and 
he exclaimed, as if greatly relieved, "The liberties of 
the country are safe ! " 

On the second of July he reached Watertown, 
where the provincial congress was sitting. He was 
accompanied by volunteers and mounted cavalcades, 
which had met him at Springfield. On the following 
morning he took command of the arm}-, standing 



1775.] THE BRITISH HEAR OF WASHKNGTON. "J} 

beneath an elm-tree that has ever since been 
cared for with veneration on that account. The 
shouts of the multitude and the roar of artillery an- 
nounced his arrival to the British in Boston. We 
know what sort of an army he found ; but we do not 
know how the commander was depressed, as he 
thought of the well-armed and well-fed troops shut up 
in Boston, which were to be met in the rush of war. 

After doing what he could to prepare his scattered 
and poorly-drilled soldiers, Washington turned his 
attention to pushing the British from Boston. He 
finally chose the anniversary of the " Boston Mas- 
sacre " for the day, and while he made an appearance 
of preparing for an attack in another direction, he 
silently built earthworks on elevated land in what is 
now South Boston, then Dorchester Heights. One 
morning the British found that they had a row of 
cannons pointed down upon them, and that not far 
away. It was the eventful fifth of March. The sight 
was like an electric shock. Not a shot was fired by 
the Americans, but it was not very long before the 
British began to pack themselves into their ships. 
In a few days the most of them sailed away for Hali- 
fax, for the purpose, as they liked to say, of getting 



74 THE BRITISH hurry to Halifax. [1775. 

" refreshment " and opportunity to exercise their 
troops. General Howe sailed on the seventeenth of 
June, but some of the British ships remained in the 
harbor for a while. 

General Washington entered the city by the road 
which, since 1789, has been called Washington street. 
He was received with joy by the few persons who 
remained. All the Tories who could, had gone with 
the fleet to Halifax, thinking they could not have 
much comfort among their countrymen. Very soon 
the general left for New York, which it was supposed 
would soon be attacked, and New England knew little 
more of war. 




-H^^ 



CHAPTER XIII. 




THE FOURTH OF JULY. 

HEN the account of the battle of Bunker 
Hill reached Europe, a Frenchman said, 
"Two more such 'victories,' and England 
will have no army left in America ! " When the 
English heard of the fall of Boston, they determined 
that greater numbers of soldiers must be sent against 
the colonies. There were only fifteen thousand of 
their troops in America, and what could they do 
toward conquering three million freemen ? 

It was not an easy thing for George the Third 
to get the men he needed. At first he thought that 
his well-drilled soldiers would be a match for many 
more than their own number of American militia- 
men, who would be poorly armed and ignorant of 
the usages of war ; but the battle of Bunker Hill and 

75 



"J^ KING GEORGE TRIES TO BUY MEN. [1775. 

the loss of Boston were enough to show hhn that he 
was wrong in thinking so. 

If the war had been popular in England, the 
difficulty would not have been so great. The citizens 
of London were ver)- much opposed to fighting their 
brethren, and so were many of the people of other 
cities. This made the king look around to see where 
he could buy men to stand up before the Americans 
and take their chances of being shot. He tried 
Russia, but Queen Catherine was not willing to sub- 
ject her soldiers to the risk. He tried Holland, but 
the Dutch remembered their fathers who had fought 
for their own independence, and they said they would 
lend a few men, if they were not to be sent out of 
Europe. This was a polite way of saying no. 

George the Third was a German. He came from 
Brunswick, and he knew of a prince in the rugged 
regions south of that country who was coarse and 
brutal, and also in want of money. His people were 
naturally soldiers, aitd, what was more to the purpose, 
they knew nothing of freedom. This prince, who 
ruled in Hesse, willingly made a bargain with King 
George to supply him nien ; but his subjects, much 
as they liked war, actually ran away in numbers to 
keep from being sent off to America to fight ! 



1775.] KING GEORGE BUYS SOME HESSIANS. ^J 

George felt that he was much Hke a man-stealer, 
as he certainly was. The men of Hesse were not only 
stolen from their homes, but they were cheated by the 
persons in England who pretended to furnish them 
supplies. They were sent off with poor blankets and 
thin shoes, with worm-eaten ham, and other worthless 
provisions. Some of their officers were honest men, 
however, and took as good care of them as possible 
under the circumstances. 

While the agents of George the Third were thus 
snatching Hessian fathers and sons from the field 
and the workshop, depriving mothers and daughters 
and helpless infants of their natural protectors, and 
throwing a large population into dire misery, the 
Americans were not idle. They were studying the 
"rights of man," and wondering how long they should 
be able to keep up their relations with the mother- 
country. 

The Congress was not an efficient body ; it could 
not well have been. The state of affairs was quite 
new ; no one could say what ought to be done. It 
did not provide money for its troops at first, though 
after a while it issued paper money, which was all 
the time getting worthless. At the end of July it 



yS CHRISTOFHER GADSDEN THANKS GOD. [1775. 

Stopped its sessions, so that its members might go 
home and see what the people thought. 

It was the first week in September when the 
delegates came together again. They had been away 
five weeks. They now represented thirteen states, 
for Georgia had joined the confederacy. They 
adopted the title "The Thirteen United Colonies." 
Washington was in a distressing situation. There 
was a jealousy of the men of New England, just as 
there had been a jealousy of Massachusetts in the 
New England Confederacy of 1643 ; but Christopher 
Gadsden of South Carolina said, " I only wish we 
could imitate them, instead of abusing them. I thank 
God that we have such a systematic body of men, as 
an asylum that honest men may resort to in the time 
of their last distress, if driven out of their own states. 
I bless God that there is such a people in America ! " 

If Congress was undecided and dilatory, the people 
were not. They had held meetings all over the land 
in which they had talked of " independence," and in 
May, 1775, Virginia had directed her delegates to 
propose breaking the ties that held the colonies to 
the mother-country. In June she declared that those 
ties were already broken. North Carolina, next in 



1776.] RICHARD HENRY LEE OF VIRGINIA. 79 

importance to Pennsylvania, took the same positive 
action and adopted a constitution. Many towns also 
had expressed themselves ready to support Congress 
in a declaration of independence, if it should be 
made. 

On the fifth of June, 1776, the Virginia resolu- 
tion was read and discussed in the building in 
which Congress met in Philadelphia. Two days later 
in Congress Richard Henry Lee of Virginia spoke 
in favor of asserting that the colonies " are, and of 
right ought to be, free and independent states." He 
suggested that a plan for a federation be made and 
sent to the colonies for consideration. He made a 
statement of the condition of affairs, drew illustra- 
tions from the history of the Greeks, the Persians, 
the Swiss, the Dutch, to show how the defenders of 
a people's liberty had always been looked upon, and 
proved that there was no need of delay. " Let us 
this happy day," he exclaimed, "give birth to 
the American Republic." 

John Adams spoke in approval of the motion ; and 
a committee was formed to draw up a " Declaration 
of Independence." On it was Benjamin Franklin. 
There was also Thomas Jefferson. Connecticut gave 



8o . THE FOURTH OF JULY. [1776. 

Roger Sherman ; Massachusetts, John Adams. Liv- 
ingston was to represent New York. I think the 
delegates who voted in favor of this resohition, and 
the gentlemen who heard their names called out as 
members of this committee, felt that they were en- 
gaged in a momentous work. 

On the second of July Congress solemnly re- 
solved that the colonies were, "and of riofht ousfht to 
be, free and independent states," and that they were 
free from all obligations to the king of England. On 
the Fourth of July a formal paper called " The Dec- 
laration of American Independence " was presented. 
It was printed and given to the world, and also 
ordered to be carefully written out on parchment for 
the signatures of the members. It had been com- 
posed by that Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, whom we 
have seen standing in a court-house listening with 
earnestness to the grand words spoken by Patrick 
Henry in favor of libert)'. He had heard many 
speeches since then, but not one had made such an 
impression upon him. 

The Declaration was not " engrossed," or ele- 
gantly written out, until the beginning of August. 
Then it was laid upon a table and signed by the 



1776.] HOW THE DECLARATION WAS SIGNED. 8l 

members who were present. As new members ap- 
peared, they were in turn called upon to put their 
names down. Thus all who voted for it did not sign 
it, and others put their names to it who were not 
members of the Congress that passed it. Every man 
as he wrote did not fail to reflect that, if the war 
should not succeed, King George would hang him ; 
but doubtless he resolved that the war should 
succeed. John Hancock wrote his name very large, 
so that the king might easily see it, he said. 




CHAPTER XIV. 




HOW THE COLONIES BECAME A CONFEDERACY. 

HE bells were rung, and there were bonfires 
everywhere, when the Declaration was made. 
It was the first " Fourth of July." The 
people felt that the great suspense was over. At 
Charleston and Savannah the rejoicing was great, 
and the bonfires bright ; in Philadelphia the " king's 
arms" were torn from the court-house and burned 
in the street. In New York the statue of King 
George, on the Bowling Green, was thrown down, 
and the lead of which it was composed was made 
into bullets. The Declaration itself was printed and 
sent from colony to colony : it was read before the 
army ; it was proclaimed to the citizens ; everywhere 
it was hailed with tokens of delight, though there 
were not a few persons who regretted the action. 
82 



1776.] THE NAME AMERICAN. 83 

There was the same unwilHngness to give up 
anything for the general good that there ahvays had 
been. Each colony was afraid that by becoming a 
member of the Union it might deprive itself of some 
right or power, and there was hesitation. It was not 
eas)- to lay down the line between the rights of the 
Union and of the particular government of the states. 
The question was not settled for ninety years. It 
took all that length of time for the national spirit 
to grow, and become strong. It was only settled 
when the great war for the Union had been fought. 

In this time of uncertainty Washington rose above 
his fellows, and told them that division would 
strengthen the enemy ; that unless all distinctions 
were to be sunk in the name " American," victory 
would never come. The people saw his wisdom and 
tried to follow his advice. Patrick Henry exclaimed, 
" I am not a Virginian ; I am an American ! " 

It was in this way that the old governments of 
the colonies were overturned. How were new ones 
formed ? It was difficult to agree upon what the 
new governments should be. Congress encouraged 
the colonies to form themselves into states with 
written constitutions. Massachusetts and New Hamp- 



84 THE GREAT WESTERN CLAIMS. [1776. 

shire had done this in the previous year ; Virginia, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and 
North Carolina followed in 1776; while Connecticut 
and Rhode Island thought that their royal charters 
were sufficient for their purposes. 

There was one great obstacle in the way of the 
coming together of the states. Some of them owned, 
or claimed to own, vast territories reaching as far 
westward as the Mississippi river, while others were 
very small. The small states argued that the great 
ones might sell their western lands, make their ex- 
penses small and their taxes light, and thus drain the 
settlers from them. 

A map of Pennsylvania twenty years before this 
time shows it reaching over a large part of New York 
and a portion of Ohio. Massachusetts claimed that 
its charter gave it all lands west of its borders that 
were not occupied by other Christians. Therefore it 
reached over New York and Canada, through the 
present Michigan and Wisconsin to the Mississippi. 
Connecticut, in like manner, stretched out through 
the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Virginia 
included portions of the same states, and also Ken- 
tucky; while the Carolinas grasped Tennessee; and 



1777.] THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 85 

Georgia included both Alabama and Mississippi. 
These states were asked to give up a great deal. 

Articles of Confederation were adopted by Con- 
gress toward the end of 1777, and sent to the 
states. They left the states free as far as their 
home affairs were concerned, and limited the power 
of the federal government. In the following June 
Maryland brought up the objections to them, 
founded on the great western claims of some states. 
Maryland was small, and felt the objection very much. 
She thought that the great claims ought to be de- 
fined by Congress and the soil of the territories west 
of them should belong to all the colonies together. 

On Washington's birthday, in 1779, New Jersey 
consented to the articles, but said that she trusted 
to the good feeling of the large states. She hoped 
that the inequality would be removed. That was 
magnanimous. Mar)'land did the same a few months 
later, but urged again that the western question 
ought to be settled before any spirit of disunion 
should be stirred up by it. 

Then Congress came in, and asked the large 
states not to sell any of their lands in the West 
until the war should be closed at least. This was 



86 THE WESTERN REGIONS GIVEN UP. [1780. 

followed by a patriotic move by New York. She 
passed a vote to the effect that, as nothing under 
Providence would be so good for America as the 
completion of the federation, she would allow Con- 
gress to limit her boundaries to the westward for 
the benefit of the Union (1780). 

After this had been done. Congress voted that 
the territory given up by the different states should 
in time be formed into similar states, and that the 
reasonable expenses that had been incurred in war 
for the territory should be repaid. Then New York, 
Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, the Carolinas, 
and finally Georgia, gave up their claims. Wash- 
ington expressed great pleasure that the difficulty 
was thus settled. He said that differences would 
be healed, funds contributed, and Congress made 
stronger. He believed that there was no finer 
country in the known world than the Ohio region. 

Connecticut was the only state that reserved any 
of the territory. She kept a tract on the shores of 
Lake Erie somewhat larger than the whole state 
now, and afterward sold it to make a fund for the 
support of her schools. 

Thus Maryland pointed out a difficulty in the 



1787.] 



THE GREAT ORDINANCE. 



^7 



way of union; New Jersey and New York helped 
to remove it, and finally everything was peacefully 
settled. Four hundred and twenty thousand square 
miles were thus given. The tract first became a 
territory and then states. 

In 1787 a celebrated ordinance was passed by 
Congress. It established the Northwestern Territory, 
and provided for schools and freedom there. It 
was one of the most notable laws ever passed in 
America, and proved a blessing to the region as 
well as to the whole union. 




CHAPTER XV. 



HOW THE WAR WAS WAGED. 




HE Americans were very busy all through 
the years of which I have just told you. 
Not only did they have to reconstruct their 
government, but they had to do it while a powerful 
enemy was putting forth every effort to destroy both 
citizens and government at once. England did not 
stop because the Americans had no money, and 
Congress no force. She pressed all the harder. She 
thought that the war would not last many months. 

Washington went from Boston to Long Island. 
The British went to Halifax ; and it was not until 
June that Lord Howe entered New York harbor. 
He was followed in July by vessels bearing eight 
thousand Hessians. I cannot tell you of all the bat- 
tles. Washington was defeated in one at Brooklyn. 



1777.] GENERAL HOWE IS ASTONISHED. 89 

He first went up the Hudson, and then crossed New 
Jersey, followed by Howe. There was hard fighting. 
The Americans suffered many losses ; but on Christ- 
mas evening Washington surprised and captured a 
body of Hessians at Trenton, on the Delaware. 

A few days later the British were again defeated, 
at Princeton, and forced to go back to New York. 
Howe was much astonished. Some months before 
he had sent his luggage on board a vessel for Eng- 
land, supposing that the war was about over. With 
the next year encouragement came from over the 
sea, for General Lafayette arrived from France to 
help the Americans. John Kalb and Steuben the 
Germans, Kosciusko and Pulaski the Poles, arrived at 
nearly the same period. These were valiant helpers. 

This year (1777) a battle occurred at Saratoga in 
the autumn. It has been called the one that decided 
the war. General Burgoyne, a bold and dashing 
officer, who had great contempt for the Americans, 
was obliged to surrender his whole army to General 
Gates. Burgoyne and his army were kept as pris- 
oners of war for a while at Cambridge and in the 
vicinity. This victory led France to take the part 
of America, and to send troops to her aid. On the 



90 BENEDICT ARNOLD'S BARGAIN. [1780. 

tenth of July, 1778, she declared war against Eng- 
land, a French minister was sent over, and Franklin 
was commissioned to stand up for his country among 
the brilliant French at the court of Versailles. The 
British had up to this time not been able to get into 
the interior of the country, and had really gained 
nothing on the seashore. 

General Howe took Philadelphia in 1777, but was 
forced to leave the city the next year. The British 
had some successors in Georgia in 1779; they sacked 
New Haven and other places in New England ; but 
they were forced out of West Point by General 
Wayne in July. Thus success rested now with one 
side and now with the other. Once an officer, 
Benedict Arnold, commanding at West Point, told 
the British that he was ready, if they paid him 
enough, to betray his trust to them. A bargain was 
made, but Washington found it out through the alert- 
ness of some farmers. Arnold escaped, and was paid 
for his treason ; but he was dishonored on both 
sides, A spy named Andre, whom the British gen- 
eral had sent to communicate with Arnold, was caught 
and hung, in accordance with the laws of war. He 
met the fate that the traitor himself deserved. This 
was in 1780. 



1780.] GENERAL GREENE TO THE RESCUE. 91 

Soon after the war began, a general named Corn- 
wallis came over. He had been a favorite of the 
king, though he was opposed to the war. He had 
a share in many of the campaigns and battles. 

When the war opened, it was the intention of the 
British to attack Charleston, as well as Boston and 
New York, and an effort was made there before the 
Declaration of Independence. The patriots defended 
themselves with great energy, the British were driven 
away, and it was a long time before they ventured 
into that region again. 

In 1780 Cornwallis went South under a general 
from New York, and Charleston was taken. Corn- 
wallis continued the efforts to conquer the South, but 
Sumter, Marion, and other daring Southerners, gave 
him much trouble. However, he defeated General 
Gates at Camden, and it seemed as if the case was 
hopeless. Then Washington sent his best beloved 
general, Nathaniel Greene, to the rescue. He had 
served with honor in the North, and now he checked 
the advance of Cornwallis, defeated him at Eutaw 
Springs, and gained the South. The states of North 
and South Carolina and Georgia gave him an estate 
near Savannah, where he died in 1786. 



92 CORNWALLIS GIVES UP. [1781, 

Cornwallis determined to close the war if possible, 
on the soil of Virginia. He destroyed millions of 
dollars' worth of property, but gained no great 
military success. In August, 1781, he brought all his 
forces together at Yorktown. As he was opposed by 
Lafayette only, he felt quite sure that he could easily 
end the war. 

He was so certain of this that he sent some of 
his soldiers away to protect New York, which he 
thoupht Washinorton was about to attack. Washinfr- 
ton had no idea of doing that. He managed to get 
all his troops, and the French army and ships of war, 
around Yorktown. Then Cornwallis found that there 
was nothing to do but to give up. He surrendered 
his whole army to the Americans in October, and the 
war was practically over. 

Washington ordered divine service to be held the 
next day, and said that the " astonishing interposition 
of Providence " should be acknowledged by gratitude 
of heart. Congress, which had been going about 
the country in fear of being captured by the enemy, 
being now at Philadelphia, now at Baltimore, at one 
time at Lancaster, at another at York, was trans- 
ported with joy to know that its migrations were over. 



1782.] A HARD DAY FOR POOR KING GEORGE. 93 

Thanks were voted to the French, and a day of 
pubHc thanksgiving and prayer was appointed. 

When the news reached England in November, 
parhament met, wilhng to acknowledge that America 
had won its independence ; but the king was obstinate 
still. It was some time before he would give up ; but 
of course he was obliged to do so at last. He came 
before the House of Lords on a foggy day in Decem- 
ber, 1782, and read a speech, in which he said that 
he admitted the separation of the colonies from his 
kingdom. The war was, as an English historian 
writes, begun and carried on in iniquity and folly, 
and was ended in disaster and shame. 

It was a hard day for the poor king. In due 
time a treaty was signed in France by representatives 
of England and America. British troops were re- 
moved from America, the American army was dis- 
banded, and Washington made his farewells to the 
army and the people. He gave them good advice, 
urging them above all never to permit anything to 
interfere with the stability of the Union and the 
loyalty of the people to its head. Everybody sees 
the wisdom of it now, though they did not all see 
it then. 







CHAPTER XVI. 

THE TROUBLES THAT CAME WITH PEACE. 

HE men about whom we have just been 
speaking were but a handful as compared 
with the nation. They were only a few 
thousand out of three million. The great mass of 
the American people had remained at their homes, 
attending to the usual business. 

Every morning the miller had let the water run 
upon his great wheel, to grind the wheat and corn 
for the people's bread. The shopkeeper had 
opened his doors for trade as regularly as though 
there had been no war. The postboy had taken 
his rides from New York to Philadelphia and Bos- 
ton, to Albany and elsewhere, with all the regular- 
ity that the movements of the armies had permitted. 
Friends had written and received their letters with 

94 



BUSINESS DURING THE WAR. 95 

even more Interest than usual. Commerce had been 
much interrupted, but merchants had pressed it as 
earnestly as they were able. The looms had been 
busy, and the spinning-wheels had whirred as con- 
stantly as ever, making the thread for the warp and 
the woof. 

Every Sunday the clergyman had gone to the 
church or the meeting-house, and from the high 
pulpit had poured forth his heart in prayer for the 
armies and for the widows and orphans whom war 
had made. He had walked about his parish as 
usual, but his talk had been more on public affairs ; 
his sermons had been prepared to stir up patriot- 
ism, or to strengthen the cause to which he was 
attached. Some of the clergy were inclined to be 
cool toward the Americans and warm toward the 
king, but usually they were strong patriots, and 
mingled much of what might be called politics with 
their more usual teachings. 

Though the business of the work-a-day world 
went on in spite of war, the men who bought 
and sold were all the time in a state of despair 
about their money. The Congress had no gold and 
silver to circulate among them, and they were 



96 BOUND BY MONEY TROUBLES. [1782. 

forced to be satisfied with paper promises to pay. 
These were good one day and ahnost worthless 
another. 

A bill promising to pay a dollar was in March, 
1778, worth a little more than half that sum; in 
September, it was worth only about twenty-five 
cents. The next March it was worth ten cents, 
and by September it was worth even less. In 
the spring of 1781 you could have bought five 
hundred dollars of paper money with but one of 
gold. A child would have been obliged to carry 
a satchelful of money to the shop to buy a paper 
of candy. 

Men asked themselves if they ought to pay 
what they owed, while gold was so hard to get. 
It was just as difficult for the states to pay their 
debts as it was for the people. When the war 
closed, the states, the cities, and the towns found 
themselves owing hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
with no means to pay. There was great distress. 
The people were free from England, but bound by 
money troubles. Officers and soldiers feared that 
Congress would not pay them. They said they 
would not disband until they were paid. They 



A TENDENCY TO DISSOLUTION. 97 

thought it a " contemptible body," at best, and cer- 
tainly it was not much to be praised. There were 
rumors of rebellions on every hand. 

Many boldly said that they would pay no debts; 
that they would set up independent governments ; 
perhaps they might unite with Canada. There were 
threatening disturbances in New England which 
gave Washington great alarm. Some settlers in 
Tennessee, who had called themselves the Watauga 
Association, now set up as the independent "State 
of Franklin," and so remained for three years. 

It was difficult to induce the members of Con- 
gress to attend its sessions, and, as the French 
minister wTOte, the American confederation had " a 
strong tendency to dissolution." Every American 
confederation had this tendency until the idea of 
the Nation had been thoroughly accepted in all 
portions of the land. Washington, who was very 
careful in what he said, thought that an " awful 
crisis " was near ; and others felt that the people 
would soon throw off all restraint of law. 

It was plain, and long had been, that Congress 
did not have sufficient power. Alexander Hamilton 
broached a plan for a new national constitution be- 



98 FORMING A STRONGER GOVERNMENT. [1787. 

fore the war closed. Certain citizens of Virginia 
and Maryland met at Alexandria, and afterward at 
Mount Vernon in 17S5, to talk about trade on the 
Potomac. The next year five states were repre- 
sented at a convention at Annapolis called to see 
if they could not act together. 

Hamilton again proposed a convention, to con- 
sider forming a constitution suitable for the times, 
and it was agreed to have one in May, 1787. The 
gentlemen wanted a stronger general government. 
They saw that unless the United States was one 
Nation it would appear to the powers of Europe as 
thirteen states all pulling in different directions, 
which might easily be broken up and separated. 

Everybody saw the need of a stronger govern- 
ment, but all were slow to send delegates to the con- 
vention. The body met on the fourteenth of May, 
but it was eleven days before there were enough 
present to attend the business. The Continental 
Congress was sitting at the same time in New York. 
It was its last session, and is memorable on account 
of the act establishing the Northwestern Territory. 

Never before had an attempt been made to found 
a national government upon a written constitution, and 



1787.] A WISE THOUGHT OF FRANKLIN. 99 

the convention in Pliiladelphia was remarkable for 
this fact, as well as for the great men who were its 
members. Four months were spent in deliberation. 

The great jDroblem was the same that always 
cornes up in making a union : how can the govern- 
ment be made powerful enough, and the people still 
have freedom? One party wished to make the 
states strong, and the other believed that the gen- 
eral government rather needed strengthening. Then 
the small states thought that they needed some 
protection from the large ones ; and the large ones 
thought that the small ones ought not to have as 
much power in the government as the others. 

Finally it was agreed that there should be a 
President ; a body called the Senate, in which each 
state, big or little, should have two representatives ; 
and a House of Representatives, to which the states 
should send members in proportion to their popu- 
lation. This was a wise thought of Franklin. He 
brought it out at a moment when it seemed that 
the convention was held together by a hair, and 
was on the verge of dissolution ; when one party 
and another were actually threatening to secede 
and cro home. It was a time of o-reat excitement. 



lOO TIMKS OF EXCITEMENT. [1787. 

and it was a blessing that so cool a man as Ben- 
jamin Franklin was ready to give his advice. 

The difference of opinion was never forgotten, 
and there were ever afterward two parties, — the 
Federalists, who strove to keep the general gov- 
ernment strong, and the Democratic Republicans, 
who wished the states to be well protected in all 
their rights. The two parties watched each other 
and the government, and thus did good service. 

The Constitution was thus adopted in convention 
by bargain and compromise, as all such are. Chris- 
topher Gadsden wrote to Jefferson that he thanked 
God, and was ready to " depart in peace," like old 
Simeon in the Gospel, so much was he pleased with 
the new constitution. It was not to be the law of 
the land until at least nine states of the thirteen 
agreed to it. This was done in less than a year, 
after much excited discussion, and it was decided 
that a President should be elected in January, 1789. 

George Washington was the greatest American, 
and he was chosen. On the fourth of March, 17S0, 
he was sworn into office in New York, where Con- 
gress then happened to be sitting, and the new 
government was in working order. 



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CHAPTER XVII. 




WASHINGTON THE FIRST PRESIDENT. 

ASHINGTON was certainly the first citizen 
of the new republic, but he had not always 
been honored through the long war as such 
a citizen deserved. He had been opposed in his 
plans, hampered by his jealous generals, maligned 
by mean men, and belittled even by some who ap- 
proved his cause. It was John Adams who exclaimed 
in 1777, "Heaven grant us one great soul! One 
leading mind would extricate the best cause from the 
ruin that seems to await it ! " Washington was to 
suffer still more from envious detractors. 

On the fourteenth of April, 1789, the new Presi- 
dent received notice of his election, and at ten in 
the morning, two days later, he was on his horse 
prepared for the journey from Mount Vernon to New 



I02 WASHINGTON INAUGURATED. [1789. 

York, to report to the Congress. Everywhere the 
citizens crowded about him, as they had when he 
went to take the lead of the army. They honored 
him with escorts and compHmentary addresses ; the 
hands of fair maidens strewed his path with roses ; 
sokhers, legislators, magistrates, welcomed him and 
filled the air with lusty cheers. 

He was inaugurated in the midst of a vast crowd 
that filled Broad, Wall, and Nassau streets, and with 
fervent prayer for Divine support he entered upon 
the duty of guiding the ship of state for a term of 
office which proved to be eight years. Tears of joy 
were shed by veteran legislators as they saw the be- 
ginnings of the new government. All gave homage 
to the President, and assured him that they would 
support him in his efforts to strengthen the liberties 
of the republic (March 4, 1789). 

There are many things that required immediate 
attention. Money matters were in a bad way, as we 
know. Congress decided to raise funds by taxing 
goods that came into the country. These taxes were 
called custom duties, and they still bear that name. 
It was thought that they would not be required longer 
than 1796, but they have not been stopped yet. 



MONEY MATTERS ARRANGED. IO3 

Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State, that 
is, he had charge of the correspondence with other 
countries. Alexander Hamikon was Secretary of the 
Treasury, and directed the money matters. Hamil- 
ton was a Federalist, like Washington, and Jefferson 
was a Democrat. They were desperately opposed 
in their opinions. 

Hamilton was determined that all the debts of 
the government should be honesdy paid; and this 
had an influence upon business, which revived all 
over the country. The debts of the government and 
of the different states were added together, with the 
exception of the paper money, and the Union became 
responsible for the whole. This was opposed by the 
Democrats, because they thought that the general 
government would be made all the stronger if the 
moneyed men were obliged to look to it, instead of 
to the different states, for the payment of their debts. 
The matter was decided, not in accordance with any 
principle, but by a bargain. It was agreed that in the 
year 1790 the capital should be removed to Phila- 
delphia, and in 1800 to some place on the Potomac. 

When the term of four years for which Washing- 
ton had at first been elected expired he was chosen 



104 WASHINGTON'S MANY TROUBLES. 

again with enthusiasm, even Jefferson, who opposed 
him in many things, thinking it was best, and that 
the states would hang together, if they had him to 
hang on. 

There were many things that gave him trouble ; 
some were important and others seem of little conse- 
quence to us. There was a good deal of thought 
given to the manner in which people should approach 
the President, and how they should address him. 
Washington was stately, and rode out in a coach that 
would now be thought very gaudy. It had flowers and 
cupids painted upon it, and six cream-colored horses 
drew it, while coachmen and postilions in scarlet and 
white added to its gay appearance. Some good 
people thought this w^as too much like the ways of 
kings. Jefferson said that he disapproved it. 

There was a revolution in France, and many 
Americans sympathized with those engaged in it. 
Jefferson was one of these. War with England was 
demanded, because she was at war with France. 
Washington thought best not to get entangled in the 
quarrels of Europe. He caused a treaty to be made 
with England, and there was much excitement about 
it. It was burned in New York and Philadelphia, 



1790.] WASHINGTON'S THOUGHTS FOR THE INDIANS. 105 

but after a while Congress agreed to it, and Wash- 
ington signed it. 

Besides all these troubles there was a terrible 
war with the Indians in the West, in 1790, and a 
Whiskey rebellion in Pennsylvania, in 1794. Both 
were settled after a good deal of fighting. Wash- 
ington had the kindliest feelings for the Indians, 
and desired to see them civilized. He said that the 
accomplishment of such a work would raise the 
national character before the world, besides being a 
source of gratification to all right-minded persons. 

The term of office of the first President closed 
in the midst of sharp party strife. He believed that 
Providence would still watch over the country, and 
he gave all his attention to serving it. In spite of 
his high character, he was attacked in the most bitter 
manner by his enemies through the newspapers. He 
was great enough to rise above all this, and to leave 
his people a farewell address filled with the most 
tender and wise counsel. He felt the ineratitude, 
however, and said that though he was so soon to 
become a private citizen, his enemies would not per- 
mit him to lie down in peace ; he must be knocked 
down, and his character reduced as low as they were 
capable of sinking it. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



A GREAT INVENTION FOR THE SOUTH. 




T came to pass that commerce and manu- 
tiires prospered in the North, while agricul- 
ture became the great business of the South. 
Slavery had decreased in the North, but it was profi- 
table to own negroes in the South. These facts 
had caused debate at the time that the Constitution 
was under discussion. The strife was destined to 
linger long and to grow fiercer. The North wanted 
to have heavy duties on all goods manufactured in 
other countries, so as to keep them out and hold its 
own prices up. This the South did not like. 

The people of the South naturally became Demo- 
cratic and the North Federalist in politics, for the 
sections demanded each a different policy on the 
part of the general government. Slavery became the 
1 06 



1792.] A YOUNG MAN NAMED WHITNEY. I07 

great matter of discussion. In the very first year of 
the government of Washington the Friends of Penn- 
sylvania and the regions about asked that the trade 
in slaves might be abolished by Congress. This 
raised a storm. 

When General Greene died he left a widow, 
who continued to live on the estate near Savannah 
that had been given her husband. In 1792 a young 
man named Whitney graduated at Yale College and 
went to live on the Greene estate. He taught school 
and studied law. His attention was not entirely 
given to his books. He noticed what was going on 
about him. He saw the negroes gathering the 
cotton, and slowly separating the beautiful white fiber 
from the seeds. It was a new thing to raise cotton 
in America. It had been grown as a garden plant, 
but it was not till after the Revolution that general 
attention was given to it. 

The great reason why more cotton was not 
raised was that it took too much time to separate 
the seeds from the fiber. A negro could clean only 
a pound in a day. The young Yankee shut himself 
up and thought. He began to put plates of iron and 
rollers together. After a while he had made a rough 



I08 THE COTTON-GIN CIIAN(iKI) EVERYTHING. 

machine that would clean three hundred pounds a 
day better than a negro could clean one. This was 
a great invention. South Carolina saw its value, 
and voted to pay Mr. Whitney fifty thousand dollars 
for it. Brains are worth having sometimes. 

What was the result of this? If such a machine 
had not been invented, cotton v.ould still have been 
only a garden plant. Instead of that, it is one of 
the most important crops raised in the country. 
The whole interior of the South was suffering for 
want of some profitable employment. People were 
going away, because they feared they would never 
get into a comfortable condition at home. The cot- 
ton-gin changed everything. The country was alive. 
The poor and idle grew rich and independent ; debts 
were paid off, and lands improved in value greatly. 
The crop of cotton increased from less than two 
hundred thousand pounds in 1791 to two thousand 
million pounds in 1859. Slavery became more than 
ever profitable, and the cause of differences between 
the North and the South increased. In eight years 
after the invention of the gin the amount of 
cotton sent out of the country increased one hun- 
dredfold. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE STRIFE OF PARTIES. 




HREE new states, Vermont, Kentucky, and 
Tennessee, were admitted to the Union 
during- the two terms of Washington, but 
not without long debate. Vermont, which was a 
free state, was kept out for fourteen years, until its 
influence as a member of the Union could be bal- 
anced by Kentucky, which had slavery. 

When Washington approached the close of his 
second term he refused to be thought of as candi- 
date for another, and the strife for the office became 
intense between the Democrats and the Federalists. 
The revolution in France, of which I have spoken, 
began in 1789. There were terrible scenes there. 
The king and queen and other prominent persons 
were executed. In fact, there were so many to 



109 



no THE FRENCH DEMAND SYMPATHY. [1797. 

have their heads cut off that a machine was invented 
to do the horrid work more rapidly. That many 
Americans sympathized with the French was not 
strang-e. We remember that that nation as well as 
its king had been very friendly to us during our 
war. These persons did not like to have a settlement 
of troubles with England such as the treaty made 
by Washington had effected. 

The election resulted in the choice of John 
Adams as President. He was a Federalist, and in 
favor of keeping out of European quarrels ; but the 
Vice-President was Jefferson, who was of the oppo- 
site party, and wished that the Americans would 
show sympathy with the revolutionists in France, 
and make war upon England. The French them- 
selves began to demand this sympathy ; and as the 
President would make no treaty with them, they 
attacked our ships. They also sent the American 
minister home. This was making war. 

Jefferson was much attached to the French. He 
believed that their revolution would not have taken 
place had ours not proved successful, and he ad- 
mired them for following our example; but he over- 
looked the great excesses that marked their acts. 



1797.] NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE! Ill 

He had the misfortune to be abroad at the tune 
that our Constitution was under discussion, and he 
never appreciated the reasons of the Federahsts for 
wishing a strong general government. 

Congress met, and sent two gentlemen to France 
to see if some peaceable arrangement might not be 
made. They were informed that they would not 
be received unless a large bribe were paid to France. 
One of them replied that America had " millions 
for defence, but not one cent for tribute ! " This 
converted many of the Democrats, and public feeling 
was much against France. A law was passed giving 
the President power to send out of the country 
any one who might seem to be dangerous ; and 
another intended to punish anybody who should write 
or conspire against the government. These were 
called the " Alien " and " Sedition " laws. 

Washington was called again from his farm, and 
put at the head of an army. The navy was in- 
creased ; but all at once the government of France 
was overturned by Napoleon, who saw that peace 
was best for him. He knew that in case of war his 
enemy, England, would certainly take sides against 
France. A treaty was easily made in 1800. 



112 KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS. [1798. 

The trouble from the ahen and sedition laws 
did not stop with peace. Virginia and Kentucky 
passed resolutions, in which they said that those 
laws were such as the government had no right 
to make, and that the states might "nullify" 
them. That is, they might keep the United States 
from carrying out its own laws. This showed that 
a conflict might come some day between the party 
which stood up for the rights of the states, and 
that which wanted a strong Federal government. 

There were two w^ays of nullifying a law of 
Congress. One was by putting all possible difficul- 
ties in the way of carrying it out, but doing it 
through the courts ; the other was by taking up 
arms against the officers of the United States. We 
shall find both ways tried in process of time. 
The courts of Massachusetts had been used as long 
ago as the time of governor Andros to nullify laws 
made by the commissioners sent over by the king 
of England. 

When President Adams came to the end of his 
term he was very unpopular, and so were the 
Federalists. Jefferson was chosen President, and 
thus the other party took up the management of 



1801.] JEFFERSON BECOMES PRESIDENT. II3 

the government. Meantime the capital had been 
moved to the Potomac, where Washineton had laid 
out a city on a grand scale. It was called by his 
name, and still is. Ic was at this time only a strag- 
gling village, with the Capitol at one end and the 
President's House at the other, about a mile apart. 
A brook ran across the road that led from one 
building to the other, and it w^as not a pleasant road 
for a walk, nor was it a good one for carriages. 

The Federalists became very aristocratic be- 
fore their power was taken away, and Jefferson 
thought best to follow the opposite line of conduct. 
He avoided parade. When he was inaugurated he 
rode on horseback from the President's House to the 
Capitol, and there read his inaugural address to the 
two houses of Congress. His acts w^ere such that 
his party grew in favor for a while, and when he 
came to the end of his term he was chosen again, 
as Washington had been. 

The great event of the administration of Jefferson 
was the purchase of " Louisiana," as the vast territory 
west of the Mississippi was called. It was very im- 
portant to the people of the West that they should 
be permitted to send goods down the river, and leave 



114 JEFFERSON BUYS LOUISIANA. [1803. 

them at New Orleans, if the)' wished, before shipping- 
them to Europe. Spain had just sold the region to 
France, but before the Spanish officer at New Orleans 
actually went away he refused to allow Americans 
to deposit their goods there. 

Jefferson sent to France to see if the site of New 
Orleans could not be bought. Napoleon was at that 
time expecting to have a war with England, and 
wished to make sure that the United States would 
not be against him ; he therefore surprised the com- 
missioners by offering to sell the whole ot Louisiana, 
a territory greater than that of the original thirteen 
states. The Americans saw the advantage of owning 
the whole of the basin of the Mississippi, and ac- 
cepted the offer. It was not long before the region 
was explored, and settlers began to pour into the 
vast valley. 

At this time England had a very objectionable 
practice, called the " impressment of seamen." She 
permitted her ships of war, if they needed more 
men, to stop any of her merchant-vessels and take 
men from them. This was almost as bad as negro 
slavery, for the men were snatched awa)' from all that 
they held dear, and forced to fight. 



ENGLAND'S OBJECTIONABLE PRACTICE. II 5 

Eno-land went further. She had considerable 

o 

disdain tor Americans, and she permitted her war- 
ships to stop our vessels to see if there were not 
some of her citizens on board. If any were found 
that could be claimed they were carried off and forced 
to fight against the flag that they had perhaps sworn 
to uphold. England declared that if a man had ever 
been a citizen of her country he was one always. 
As many Americans had, of course, once been 
English citizens, a pretext was given for carrying 
oh'" our men. 

We thought this was wrong, as everybody now 
thinks it. We claimed that six thousand men had in 
this manner been wrongfully dragged away to suffer 
on English ships. England confessed that many 
hundreds had been. It was worse than negro slavery 
in their cases, because they were not only slaves, but 
slaves that were in constant danger of being shot, 
or drowned, or blown up. America thought this was 
an outrage. It brought about war in time. 

The filling up of the country made better roads 
necessary, and as the people were unable to build 
all that were needed for the general good, Mr. Jeffer- 
son caused a plan to be prepared for one to extend 



I 1 6 THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. [1807. 

all the way from Maine to Georgia, and also for canals 
and other public works that were to cost man)- mil- 
lions. The President had before this been opposed to 
using the public money in that way, and many agreed 
with him. The subject of " internal improvements," as 
it was called, disturbed the country for a long time. 
It was voted, however, to build such a road from 
Maryland to Ohio. It was called the Cumberland 
Road, and was not finished for fourteen years. It 
proved a great advantage to the country. 

In 1807 the first steamboat sailed up the Hudson 
River from New York to Albany. Travel by water 
was much improved. Robert Fulton was the genius 
who invented the steamboat. He was ridiculed until 
he succeeded, and then he was honored as a great 
inventor. Fulton also invented a torpedo, which he 
intended should be so powerful as a destroyer of 
ships that no one would dare to begin a war on 
the sea. All the nations refused to buy it ; but 
English ships were a little timid about approaching 
the American coast afterward, lest they might en- 
counter such an engine under water. 

Meantime there were complications among the 
nations of Europe, and difficulties between England 



1807.] JEFFERSON'S FATAL EMBARGO. II7 

and America that threw a cloud over pubHc affairs. 
American commerce, which had become very great, 
between 1803 and 1806, was almost ruined by an act 
of Congress called the " embargo," which forbade 
vessels from sailing out of our own ports (1807). 
The object was to injure England by stopping all 
her American trade, but it seemed to damage our 
country much more. New England and the Middle 
States were the greatest sufferers by the embargo, 
and their indignation was intense. It was thought 
that New England would nullify the act. 




CHAPTER XX. 




ANOTHER WAR WITH ENGLAND. 

UBLIC feeling" was growing very strong 
aorainst Encrland, thouo-h there were as 
usual two parties. 

The Presidents who followed Jefferson were Mad- 
ison and Monroe. They each served two terms. 
The time of the first was very boisterous, but that of 
the second was known as the " era of good feeling." 
The country grew in population and wealth very 
much during this period, and the number of states in- 
creased also. While Jefferson was President only one 
state (Ohio) was admitted ; but Louisiana and Indiana 
came in while Madison was President, and Mississippi, 
Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri during the 
terms of Monroe. 

All this prosperity was as nothing to the desire 

ii8 



1811.] FEARS ABOUT ADMITTING LOUISIANA. II9 

for war. The passions of tlie people were rising ; but 
all were not on one side, as I have said. It was 
claimed that the Federalists were actually making 
an arrangement to carry New England out of the 
Union. States, towns, and courts declared against 
the embargo. 

In the midst of it all an Indian war broke out. 
Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawnees, stirred up the 
natives of the West and South, and in 1811 burst 
upon an American army under General Harrison 
near the mouth of the Tippecanoe River, Harrison 
routed him. 

When it was proposed to admit Louisiana to the 
sisterhood of states, Josiah Ouincy declared in Con- 
gress that it would be a virtual dissolution of the 
Union, and that it would be the duty of the states to 
prepare for separation, either by peaceful means or 
by war. He feared that it would lessen the influence 
of the Eastern states. This shows how excited men 
were, and how strong the jealousy of one portion of 
the country was against another. These feelings grew 
still stronger. The acts of England, however, caused 
the majority of the people to demand war at last. 

The army and navy were increased, and the 



I20 ANOTHER WAR WITH ENGLAND. [1812. 

President was authorized to call out the militia, and 
to borrow money. America had not taken sides in 
the war between France and England, and had suf- 
fered from both. France had forbidden commerce 
with England and her colonies, and England would 
not permit us to trade with France or any country 
allied to her. We thought that if we did not take 
sides, we ou^ht to be allowed to trade where we 
pleased. 

Our navy was composed of twenty ships of war, 
while England had a thousand. There was no prep- 
aration for war; but it was declared in June, 1812. 
Four days afterward England recalled her orders 
about the trading of Americans with France ; but it 
took time for the news to cross the Atlantic. Napo- 
leon had withdrawn his decree on the same subject 
months before. If England had been a little more 
prompt, perhaps there would have been no blood- 
shed. 

War now began. Canada was invaded ; there 
were fights on land and on sea. Many lives were 
lost ; large sums of money were wasted. After a 
while England conquered Napoleon in France, and 
had more soldiers to send to America. Thousands 



1815.1 THE PEOPLE TIRED OF WAR. 121 

of men and many ships were sent over. They were 
ordered to destroy and lay waste all towns and dis- 
tricts that they could reach. They burned the Capitol 
and the President's house at Washington, and did 
many other acts that were not allowed even by the 
savage laws of war. 

As the struggle went on the English saw that if 
they could take New Orleans they might, perhaps, 
divide the Union, and they sent forces thither. 
General Andrew Jackson, a hero without fear, was 
there. He met the trained soldiers who had con- 
quered Napoleon, and thoroughly beat them. This 
was January 8, 1815. 

The people on both sides had become tired of 
war, and a treaty was made. It was signed two weeks 
before the battle at New Orleans, but as telegraphs 
and cables had not been introduced, the fact was 
not known there. The treaty made no mention of the 
matters about which the fight had been carried on. 
This seemed strange, but England never impressed 
seamen again, and we know that the interference with 
American commerce had been setded before the war 
opened. Doubtless the Americans who signed the 
treaty knew that neither subject needed to be men- 



122 THE AMERICANS GAIN THEIR TOINTS. [1815. 

tioned in a formal way, and certainly the English did 
not wish to mention them. In 1842 Daniel Webster, 
who was then Secretary of State, declared that the 
American flag should protect the crews of merchant- 
vessels sailing under it, and in 1870 parliament passed 
an act which allowed British subjects to become 
Americans, and thus the dispute was settled as the 
United States had wished it. 

The war had some good effects. It gave the 
people of America more confidence in their govern- 
ment. They learned that they had influence in the 
politics of Europe. It appeared that the Emperor 
of Russia had not been averse to taking the part of 
the Americans against England. The Russians have 
often been very friendly to us since that time. 
There was something gained in loyalty to the United 
States as a nation, too, but much more was needed. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

GOOD FEELING AND HOPE. 

iip«»^;|HE war and the acts connected with it had 
^^^i resulted in ahnost destroying the commerce 
l^^^i-ll of the country ; but it had, on the other 
hand, caused ingenious men to invent machinery and 
build factories to supply the goods that had formerly 
come from abroad. In order to raise money, the 
government had increased the duties on merchandise 
brought from England and other countries. This 
raised their price, kept people from buying them, and 
caused the business of manufacturing in America 
to be more profitable than it would otherwise have 
been. Peace reduced these profits, for it had been 
agreed that the duties should return to what they 
had been before. Besides goods were brought from 
England, of course. 

123 



124 THE FEDERAL PARTY MAKES A MISTAKE. [1815. 

The English were determnied that the products of 
their factories should be bought in America, and they 
sent millions of dollars' worth of them to be sold 
at any price. They wished to keep the Americans 
from selling theirs. This made the trade of building 
ships and of carrying goods in them very brisk, but 
it ruined many American manufacturers. Workmen 
who had made their living in cotton factories had 
nothing to do. It was therefore found necessary to 
invent better machinery for our mills. Still the manu- 
facturers asked for duties that would keep the foreign 
goods out of the country, and in some cases they 
obtained them. 

The Federal party, to which Washington had be- 
longed, had little life left after the War of 1812, as 
it was called. Just at the end of the war a secret 
convention was held at Hartford, which was supposed 
to have discussed nullification and a dissolution of 
the Union. Party spirit was so high that its objects 
were not examined calmly, and indeed it would have 
been difficult to examine them, since the meetings 
had been secret. 

The discussion caused many persons to say what 
they thought about the union of the states. One 



HOW SLAVERY WAS FORCED UPON AMERICA. 1 25 

gentleman in Virginia said that no state, and no 
number of states, had a right to go out of the Union 
without the consent of the others, and that any one 
who tried to do it was guiky of treason. A com- 
mittee was sent from Hartford to Washington, but 
peace came just then, and nothing more was heard 
of the convention or its doings. The Federal party 
was killed. 

There were thirty years of rest from war after the 
treaty with England of 1815, but there were many 
subjects that excited the people in regard to home 
aflairs. One of these came up when Missouri was 
admitted to the Union in 1820, and it gave much 
trouble for nearly fifty years. This was slaver)-. We 
know that it had slowly gone out in the North, but 
it had increased in the South, where cotton, rice, and 
tobacco are profitable crops to be raised by negroes. 

The first slaves came to Virginia about the same 
time that the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. They 
did not come to New England so soon. After a 
while the ruler of England, who was Queen Anne, 
got the trade in slaves into her hands, and agreed 
to furnish the Spaniards four or five thousand negroes 
a year. The English actually took some fifteen 



126 WHAT MR. JEFFERSON THOUGHT. 

thousand a year away from their African homes. 
The queen and her ministers pushed the business as 
much as they could ; they called it " the pillar of the 
American plantations." They would not let the 
colonies check it in any way, it was so profitable. 

When the Declaration of Independence was 
written by Mr. Jefferson, it contained a very sharp 
accusation of the king of England for keeping an 
open market where men could be bought and sold, 
and for forcing the Americans to allow the piratical 
business. Jefferson said that in time the negroes 
would be free, but that it alarmed him to think of 
the struggle that he felt sure would some day come 
between the partisans of slavery and freedom. 

When Missouri was admitted, it was by a " com- 
promise," as it is called. Each side was obliged to 
give up something, as we have seen is always the 
case when there is a union of action about anything. 
In this case it was agreed that a line should be 
drawn through the country, and that there should 
never be any more slave states north of it. It used 
to be said that slavery was south of Mason and 
Dixoii's Line, but the line now laid down was con- 
siderably south of that. It was the southern line of 
Missouri. 



HOW THE BALANCE WAS KEPT. 12/ 

Mason and Dixon's Line was established by two 
surveyors in 1763, to mark the southern hne of 
Pennsylvania, and the northern line of Maryland and 
Virginia. In truth, slavery did not die out in the North 
until 1820. When Missouri, a slave state, asked 
to be admitted, Maine, a free state, was also taken 
in, so as to keep up the balance of votes. You re- 
member that this had been done before in the case 
Kentucky and Vermont. The newspapers printed the 
following lines at that time (1790), showing what 
was thought on the subject : 

Kentucky to the Union given, 
Vermont will make the balance even ; 
Still Pennsylvania holds the scales, 
And neither North nor South prevails. 

President Monroe gave the people a simple doc- 
trine that has never been forgotten. It was that no 
European government was to plant colonies on the 
continents of North or South America. This was 
intended to be another safeo'uard acjainst our eet- 
ting drawn into the quarrels of the nations of Eu- 
rope. It also protected the small republics of South 
America. It was not acted upon by Congress, but 
became an unwritten law that the nations under- 
stood we should not permit to be violated. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THE COUNTRY FILLING UP. 




HEN the Revolutionary war was over the 
people began to look westward, as we re- 
member that their ancestors of the Anglo- 
Saxon Hne had been for ages looking. There were 
many reasons why the great West should have at- 
tracted our fathers. It was a noble land ; there 
were vast prairies over which game of all sorts 
roamed ; the forests were filled with birds ; the soil 
was fertile, and promised rich crops to the farmer ; 
there were magnificent rivers, and many small 
streams to water the land ; and the land itself was 
cheap and easily tilled. 

I have some letters that were written from 
Ohio soon after the war, in which the grand future 
of the region is set forth. The writer was one of 



1787] THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF OHIO. 1 29 

those who had stood up for Hberty during the 
long revolution. When it was over he found 
that as he had paid for blankets that the govern- 
ment failed to provide for the soldiers, and for guns 
and provisions that it professed to suppl)', but did 
not send when they were wanted, he had spent all 
the money he had. The government had little to 
give him but paper promises that were worth some- 
thing to-day and nothing to-morrow. 

A great many officers of the army and others 
were thus moneyless, because the government was so 
poor. They looked out over the West, and thought 
that the beautiful land of Southern Ohio was a 
good place to live in. As soon as the war closed, 
they began to arrange their plans. The)' made Con- 
gress an offer to buy half a million acres of land 
and to settle upon it ; but they wished to be sure 
of wise laws, and they used their influence to have 
the Ordinance of 1787 passed by Congress, so that 
they should have good schools and no slavery. 

It was a . very important matter ; everybody in- 
terested in public affairs began to talk about it ; 
the French minister wrote to his government an 
account of it, and many other letter-writers de- 



130 A SETTLEMENT AT MARIETTA. [1788, 

scribed the movement. Congress saw that it would 
be a good thing to have men of such character as 
these becrin the settlements in that reo-ion, and it 
passed the Ordinance, without any compromise, — 
every member voting for it. North and South 
agreed that the Northwestern Territory should be 
free forever. 

A settlement was made at Marietta, Ohio, April 
7, 1788, and after that the stream of immigrants 
continued to flow westward. They reached the 
great lakes ; they found themselves on the banks 
of the Father of Waters, as the Mississippi River 
was called ; and still they kept on. They followed 
the streams to their sources ; they found passes 
through the Rocky Mountains ; they went down the 
rivers to the Pacific coast. After a while they be- 
oan to understand that this is a erand continent ! 

When the first settlers went west, they traveled 
on horseback, fordinp- the streams, and sufferino- 
many hardships. After that they took great heavy 
wagons with covers of white cloth, in which they 
packed their wives and children and utensils. They 
called them " prairie schooners." I am old enough 
to have seen such wagons slowly going across the 



GOING WEST IN PIONEER DAYS. I3I 

prairies, and camping at night by the side of 
convenient streams where the cheerful fires lighted 
up the darkness. 

They had very hard times ; but that is the lot 
of all who begin anything. Those who came after 
them enjoyed the fruits of their labors. In this 
wa)- the country began to fill up. Farms were laid 
out, towns were planned, and cities appeared on the 
maps, where perhaps there were but a few log-huts 
and many stakes showing the corners of the town 
lots that it was hoped to sell to new sectlers. 

All this is past now. Men who go West take 
the trains, and have man)^ comforts. They find tel- 
egraphs not far from their farms, and railroads to 
carry their corn and wheat to market, or to take 
them back to their Eastern homes. There are books 
and papers ; there are churches and halls, in which 
they can gather to listen to preachers and lecturers 
who eive them information of all sorts. 

No one will ever have the experiences of the 
pioneers again in this land. It is entertaining to 
read of their brave doings. It was a noble work, 
that of going as they did into the wilds to build 
up a country for posterity. As the Western settle- 



132 WHY IMMIGRANTS CAMK FROM EUROPE. 

ments extended, applications were received by Con- 
gress for the admission of new states, and thus the 
Union increased from thirteen to its present number. 

Not only were the Western wilds filling up by 
the removal thither of men of the East, — hundreds 
of thousands came over the ocean to find homes in 
a land where there was no king. At a little later 
time - than we have reached, a great many came 
from Ireland. There was a famine in that country. 
The Irish people had sent provisions to Plymouth 
in early times, when it was suffering in the same 
way, and now America sent large quantities of food 
to them in their distress. 

The wars of Napoleon also caused many people 
to wish to flee from a continent that was so dis- 
turbed, where a poor man had no very good chance 
to make a living, and to go to one where every- 
thing was described to them with almost as much 
brilliancy as the English formerl)- pictured the 
goodly land of \ irginia. We opened our arms and 
received them. Thus our land gradually filled up 
with Europeans, and the languages of almost every 
country in the world are heard in the streets of 
our cities and on the prairies of the great West. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



SOUTH CAROLINA RESTIVE. 




TOLD you that there are two ways of nulH- 
fying a law of Congress. The FederaHsts 
who attended the Hartford Convention, as 
it is called, proposed to take one way, — that of 
trying to do it with the aid of the courts of law. 
We shall now see the other way. 

The presidents who followed Monroe Immediately 
were John Ouincy Adams, from 1825 to 1829, and 
Andrew Jackson, from that time to 1837. The 
country was discussing more and more the taxes, or 
duties, that were paid on goods brought from other 
lands. The list of these was called the " tariff." 
It is said that this name was given because some 
twelve hundred years ago a certain Moor named 
Tarif stationed himself near the rock of Gibraltar, 



133 



134 TALKING ABOUT THE TARIFF. [1825. 

and forced all vessels that passed by him to pay for 
the privilege. It was much like robbery ; but a tariff, 
such as a government levies for paying its expenses; 
or even to protect manufacturers, is not robbery. 

The duties were increased in these days. I have 
told you that the tariff separated the interests of the 
North and the South, because there was no charge 
made on cotton and other southern products brought 
into the land, while there was a duty on those articles 
that the Northern manufacturers made. This, the 
Southerners thought, kept the prices of their cotton 
and tobacco down, while it kept up the prices of many 
things for which they had to pa)' the North. This 
does not look fair, certainly. 

By the time that President Adams was closing 
his term of office duties had risen very high, so that 
the South thought it had to pay almost fifty per cent 
more than the articles ought to cost. The people 
there drew more and more closely together ; not only 
on this account, but also because they began to feel 
that the North might want to interfere with slaver}". 

President Adams did not have an easy time in his 
office. There was a great deal of opposition to him. 
A party arose, known as "Jackson men," attached 



1829.] (iKNEKAL JACKSON KECO.MILS PRESIDENT. 1 35 

to the hero of the battle of New Orleans. He was 
a person of great force, and attracted men to him, 
while the President was complained of as being 
"cold" to those who came to see him. 

There were disagreements, too, about the power 
of the President in giving to the press advertise- 
ments of government business ; in making men post- 
masters who would do as he wished in public matters ; 
and in appointing and dismissing officers of the army 
and navy. The President has still a great power in 
these respects. His authority is, in fact, greater than 
that of the queen of England. Laws were prepared 
to restrain the President, but they did not pass. 
Still, he continued to lose popularity, and Jackson 
was chosen to take his office. 

During the term of Mr. Adams the debt had been 
greatly reduced ; the government had done much 
to improve the different parts of the country ; light- 
houses, arsenals, barracks, forts, and public buildings, 
had been erected in many places, and the land 
prospered. 

The new President was an Anti-Federalist, and 
his party was called Democratic. There was great 
rejoicing on the part of many when Jackson was 



136 JACKSON MEN GET THE I'OST-OFFICES. [1829. 

elected. His name stirs people yet. He thought 
himself the special representative of " the people," — 
probably not the " poor " people nor the " rich," but 
the whole people. After he was inaugurated, a 
motley crowd followed him to the White House, 
helter-skelter, on foot and on horseback, thinking 
that refreshments were to be distributed. Men with 
coarse boots, bespattered with Potomac mud, stood 
on the fine damask-covered chairs and sofas, and 
Daniel Webster said that he had never seen such a 
crowd there before. Judge Story said that " King 
Mob " reigned. 

The new President promised reform, and had 
much to say about the faults of Mr. Adams and his 
party. He remo\-ed many hundreds of men that 
Adams had appointed to office. All the post-offices 
worth having were given to "Jackson men." The 
new plan was followed of distributing the offices 
among those persons who had voted for the Presi- 
dent, or had in other ways helped his election. 

There now came on a discussion that attracted 
more attention than any that had occurred since the 
time of the Missouri compromise. A proposition 
was made to stop selling Western lands. The South 



1831.] TALKING ABOUT NULLIFICATION. 137 

thought that this was intended to hinder men from 
going West, in order to keep the Eastern states 
crowded, and thus to help the manufacturers, by giv- 
ing them many workmen at low prices. This, they 
thought, would harm them, as the tariff had. Daniel 
Webster of Massachusetts and Paul Y. Hayne of 
South Carolina entered into the discussion, and it 
soon became a debate on the powers of the states 
and the general government, — the same that had 
divided men at the beginning of the Union. 

The South opposed what it called " the American 
System," which aimed to make the national govern- 
m.ent stronq-, as the Federalists and Washineton had 
wished it to be, and claimed that a state had the right 
to nullify a law of Congress. Soon they began to 
talk of "nullifying" the tariff act. 

Then President Jackson was aroused. He was at 
a dinner on the birthday of Jefferson, and gave as his 
sentiment, " Our Federal Union ; it must be pre- 
served." John C. Calhoun of South Carolina followed, 
giving his sentiment, "The Union; next to liberty the 
most dear ; may we all remember that jt can only be 
preserved by respecting the rights of the states, and 
distributing equally the burdens and benefits of the 



I3<S ^ IlKXRV CLAY'S COMPROMISE TARIFF. [1833. 

Union." Thus they showed very clearly the sides 
they were to take. 

South Carolina called a convention in 1832 which 
passed an ordinance nullifying- the tariff laws. Jack- 
son issued a proclamation against it, and then asked 
Congress to give him power to carry out the laws. 
He called General Scott, a hero of the war of 18 12, 
to Washington, and told him to go to Charleston and 
see that the laws were respected. A naval force was 
also sent to Charleston harbor. At this time Henry 
Clay of Kentucky came forward with a compromise 
tariff, and the rates were, after a long struggle, reduced 
very much. The other Southern states had not sup- 
ported South Carolina, and she accepted the com- 
promise ; but no principle was settled, and oppor- 
tunity was left for another effort of a state to rise 
against the general government. 

From the time of Jackson the discussion about 
slavery had been going on, and it now became violent, 
both in the North and the South, though there was 
opposition to the immediate abolition of slavery, or 
makin<T the negroes free. 

The Friends had always been in favor of freedom 
for the blacks, and the anti-slavery movement began 



1833.] THERE WAS INTENSE EXCITEMENT. 1 39 

with one of them, Benjamui Lundy, in 1821. He 
traveled about forming societies and lecturing against 
slavery. In 1829 William Lloyd Garrison of Massa- 
chusetts joined Lundy, and declared for no union with 
slaveholders. The same sort of movement was going 
forward in other countries also. 

There was intense excitement ; mobs burned 
property and assaulted men ; there were riots between 
blacks and whites ; the newspapers became violent, 
and some of them were forbidden to be passed 
through the mails. Of course the South was espe- 
cially stirred. There was no division of opinion there, 
as there was in the North. As Mr. Calhoun said, 
" the slave question " was the one on which there was 
the most complete unity. Up to this time, or very 
near it, there had been a general feeling that slav- 
ery was an evil, which should be removed in some 
gradual way. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



A- GREAT INCREASE OF TERRITORY. 




HERE were many events in the time of 
Jackson that we can say only a few words 
about. The Indians had given trouble, and 
the o-overnment, which had begun to push them to 
the west while Jefferson was President, now removed 
several tribes from Mississippi and Florida. There 
were troubles also regarding the banks. The govern- 
ment received so much money from duties and other 
taxes that the debt of the country was almost paid off 
by 1835 ; but at the same time the people were so 
prosperous that they speculated too much. Large 
sums were sent from England also for investment, 
and they added to the great wealth already in the 
country. 

When the people feel rich they bu}- largely from 



1837.] THE WHOLE COUXTRV IN A PANIC. I4I 

Other lands. This was the case hi the time of Jackson, 
and it at last proved difficult to pay for the goods thus 
bought. Some English merchants failed ; that is, they 
found themselves receiving so little for the goods they 
shipped to America that they could not pay their 
debts. Cotton fell in price very much, and that made 
some merchants in New Orleans fail. Then New 
York felt the difficult)-, and the banks there could not 
pay what they owed. This was in 1837. 

Soon the whole country was in a panic, as it is 
called, when nobody knows which way to turn to get 
money for business purposes. There was great con- 
fusion and distress ; but before this came on a new 
President had been chosen. He was Martin Van 
Buren, a Democrat, like Jackson. 

Mr. Van Buren had been a politician for a long 
time in New York, had been senator at Washington, 
and Minister to the English court. The disastrous 
times continued while he was in office. Besides the 
many failures, there was a great falling off in the value 
of land in the city of New York and elsewhere, and 
thousands of laborers lost their employment. The 
trouble did not stop with one merchant, or many ; 
it extended to cities, towns, and states, and at last 



142 TROUBLES ABOUT TEXAS. [1844. 

to the government itself. When the United States 
wished to borrow money in Europe, in 1842, no one 
was wilhng- to trust it. 

For all these troubles the President was blamed, 
and party strife became more and more exciting. 
When the next election came the Democratic party 
was overthrown, and General William Henry Har- 
rison, the hero of Tippecanoe, was chosen in Mr. 
Van Buren's place. His term was from 1841 to 1845. 

Harrison was a Whig. He was immediately 
worried by office-seekers, and died a month after 
he entered office. John Tyler, of Virginia, the Vice- 
President, took his place. He was a Whig also ; but 
he turned his back upon his party, and became very 
unpopular. His term of office was disturbed by more 
violent discussions about increasing the domain of 
slavery by " annexing" a large region now known as 
Texas. This country had been explored first by the 
French, under La Salle. After that the Spanish 
fought for it; and at last, in 18 19, it became a part 
of Mexico, — at the time that Florida was sold to 
the United States. 

Though the Texas region had been given up to 
Spain largely through the influence of the South, its 



1846.] A WAR WITH MEXICO. I43 

politicians now saw that they had made a mistake, and 
wished it back again. Americans had made settle- 
ments there as early as 1823, on lands granted by the 
government of Mexico. In 1830 Texas declared her- 
self independent, and the president of Mexico ex- 
pressed his consent. The next year the United 
States acknowledged her independence, and Mr. 
Calhoun desired that she should be immediatel)- an- 
nexed to our territory. Soon Texas herself made 
the same request, but it was refused by our senate. 
James K. Polk was the next President. When he 
was chosen this discussion about Texas was very hot. 
The Northern abolitionists were opposed to annexing 
it, and the Southern politicians favored doing so. 
After Mr. Polk had been elected, and just before 
his term of office began, Texas was actually annexed, 
and soon afterward there arose a dispute about the 
boundary between its territory and that of Mexico. 
The United States sent an army to "occupy" the 
disputed country, and soon a pretext was found for 
declaring war. It was done in this way. General 
Taylor moved his troops to the doubtful region, and 
was attacked. Then the President said that war 
existed " by the act of Mexico." 



144 GLITTERING GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. [1848. 

There followed nearly three years of conflict. It 
resulted in our taking a large portion of Mexican ter- 
ritory, and making ourselves masters of the California 
region. The Democratic party found itself divided 
on the subject of slavery, and as a house divided 
against itself cannot stand, it fell. The Whigs elected 
General Zachary Taylor, who was fresh from the vic- 
tories in Mexico. 

He was opposed by the Democrats, of course, and 
by a new party called " Free-Soilers," who were more 
opposed to slavery than the Whigs were. The Whigs 
were, indeed, not ready to be known as the anti- 
slavery party, and the Democrats were no less unwill- 
ing to be called the supporters of slavery. This 
shows that the people, upon whom each party was 
dependent for votes, were so nearly divided that 
it was dangerous to offend them. 

Just before the inauguration of President Taylor 
there occurred an event which immediately changed 
the aspect of afl'airs all over the land. A man in 
California turned up a sod with his spade, and was 
astonished to see particles of gold glittering beneath. 
The news that the soil of the new region was filled 
with the precious metal that adventurers had been 



1849.] CALIFORNIA KNOCKS FOR ADMISSION. 145 

seeking in the New World for three hundred years 
spread all over America. It went to Europe, to 
Asia, — everywhere, — in a short time; and ships were 
soon sailing around Cape Horn and across the Pacific 
Ocean in that direction. 

Long trains of "prairie-schooners" might be seen 
crossing the immense plains that stretched westward 
from the Missouri River, and wending their way 
slowly through passes in the Rocky Mountains. There 
was sharp suffering in getting to the land of gold ; 
many bones of animals and men bleached on the 
barren wastes of the plains, and there was much 
more hardship when the land was reached. 

Gold was found and sent over the world, but the 
men who dug it from the ground seldom became rich. 
Towns grew up in a night, cities were formed, filled 
with men only, and a new and rough civilization 
began on the Pacific coast. In a few months Cali- 
fornia was knocking at the doors of the Union, and 
asking to be admitted as a state. It was marvelous ! 
Arkansas had come in in 1836; Michigan, in 1837; 
Florida and Texas, in 1845; Iowa, in 1846; Wiscon- 
sin, in 1848; and now California was admitted in 
1850, enlarging the number of states to thirty-one. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



ANOTHER COMPROMISE. 




E have seen many compromises in the course 
of American history. It almost seems that 
progress has been made only in this way ; 
but it is equally plain that many compromises have 
left matters in a bad state. That is true of the one 
that we are about to give attention to. Washington 
urged the people to forget local prejudices and 
policies, to make mutual concessions, and to sacrifice 
individual advantages to the interests of the com- 
munity. He meant that they ought to be ready to 
make compromises of that kind, though he would 
never have advised compromising a principle of right 
action. There is an important distinction here. 

The discussion of slavery did not cease. It had 
been increased in intensity in 1837, by the murder 
146 



1850.] HENRY CLAY SEEKS PEACE. I47 

by a mob of an antislavery editor named Lovejoy, 
in Illinois, and the North was indignant. It was 
thought that the whole South approved of the doings 
of this mob, and each side grew more and more 
certain that there was at some time to be a fearful 
battle between those holding opposite views on this 
subject. 

Large meetings were held in the North to urge 
that slavery should no longer be meddled with by 
the government, because so many felt that it was the 
matter above all others that interfered with good 
feeling between the states. When California asked 
to be admitted, it was a question whether it should 
be a free or a slave state, and Henry Clay of Ken- 
tucky, a statesman who always sought harmony, came 
forward with certain compromise measures that he 
supposed would make peace sure. There were hot 
heads on both sides, however, who were not to be 
satisfied by any compromise. One part of Mr. 
Clay's measure was called the Fugitive Slave Law, 
because it was intended to enforce the return of runa- 
way slaves without the trial by a jury usual in other 
cases. 

That slaves oueht to be returned to ther owners 



148 DANIEL WEBSTER FAVORS COMPROMISE. [1850. 

when they ran away, was never doubted in early 
times. It was ordered by tliose articles which the 
states of New England had agreed to in 1643, and 
by the constitution of the United States, as well as 
by a law of Congress passed in 1793. This last law 
was now to be made more strong. 

The Whigs and Free-Soilers did not care that 
California was to be admitted as a free state, if this 
law were to be passed, and other provisions that were 
considered by Mr. Clay to be of advantage to them, 
were not thought of much weight. 

The fugitive slave law was passed. Daniel 
Webster, the great Massachusetts statesman, spoke 
strongly in favor of the compromise, and many, both 
in the North and the South, accepted the bill as one 
that was to promote harmony. It had the opjjosite 
effect. Many harsh words were spoken and written 
pn both sides during the discussion, and bad feeling 
was stirred up. (1850.) 

The Abolitionists determined that the law should 
not be carried out. They passed other laws in- 
tended to hinder the execution of it. This was a 
sort of nullification. An " underground railroad," as it 
was called, was arranged, by which slaves were sent 



1853.] A WORLD'S FAIR IN NEW YOPK. 149 

from one friendly house to another all the way across 
the free states, until they were landed in Canada, 
where the laws of the United States could not reach 
them. When runaway slaves were taken from free 
states back into slavery there was intense excitement. 
Thus matters went on from bad to worse. In the 
midst of this turmoil Franklin Pierce was proposed 
for President. He was a Democrat and a New-Eng- 
lander. So many voters thought that his election 
might bring peace, that both his opponents were 
thoroughly defeated by him. (1852.) 

His administration really began with events of 
peace rather than of strife. There was a World's 
Fair in New York ; the region of Arizona was bought 
from Mexico ; a treaty of advantage to commerce 
was made with Japan ; and, under the direction of 
Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, surveyors 
were sent out to see what route might be found for 
a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This was 
on account of the great increase of emigrants to 
California. Many who went to the Western states 
were of other nations, invited to our shores by stories 
of its fertility and wealth. Ireland sent large num- 
bers, after the famine that occurred there in 1847, 



150 A RUSH TO KANSAS. [1854. 

which arose from the failure of the crop of potatoes. 
The fact that Americans had sent provisions to 
them then added to their desire to come here, but 
many came because they were made uneasy by the 
measures of the Enghsh government. The popula- 
tion of the island in 1841 was more than eight 
million; in 1851 it had fallen off nearly a quarter, 
and the country kept on losing its inhabitants. 

The territory lying west of Missouri and Iowa was 
now filling up with settlers, and it became necessary 
to form a government there. By the terms of the 
Missouri Compromise this region was to be free from 
slavery; but in spite of that fact, in 1854 Congress 
formed it into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, 
the inhabitants of which were allowed to determine 
whether they should in the future enter the Union as 
free or slave states. This was called in political 
slang the doctrine of " Squatter Sovereignty ; " be- 
cause many who went into the territories wished 
simply to vote, and did not intend to become perma- 
nent settlers. 

Immediately a rush began from both North and 
South into Kansas, for the purpose of filling it with 
voters. If the larger number went from the North, 



1857.] JAMES BUCHANAN BECOMES PRESIDENT. 151 

it would of course be free ; if from the South, there 
would be slavery. Whenever there came times for 
voting, there was great confusion. All were in ear- 
nest, and there were many riots, battles, and murders. 
The state was not admitted until 1861, and then it 
came in free from slavery. In the mean time Minne- 
sota and Oregon had been admitted as free states ; 
but we are getting ahead of our story. 

The Missouri Compromise, upon which many had 
relied for peace, was after 1854 of no value, for the 
question of freedom or slavery in the new states was 
to be decided by the votes of the people. In 1857 
the supreme court complicated matters by deciding 
that an owner of slaves might take them wherever 
he chose. Thus there might be slavery in any state. 

In that year Mr. James Buchanan, another Demo- 
crat, became President. The power of the Southern 
states in the Union now decreased. At the time that 
Kansas entered the Union, which was at the end of 
Mr. Buchanan's term, there were nineteen free and 
fifteen slave states. 






CHAPTER XXVI. 



DRIFTING INTO TROUBLE. 




j|HE people of America were drifting into 
trouble very rapidly ; they almost seemed 
to be rushing into it. The story of the 
next few years is one that we should be glad to 
pass over. Angry passions were rising, and it seemed 
as though government, law, and order would be 
carried away. Men were sorrowful, if they were not 
angry. Some were hopeful, but not many. 

Daniel Webster said that the North and the 
South were jealous of each other, because they 
looked at the hot-heads on the opposite sides as 
representing the whole people ; forgetting that there 
always is a large number of the best citizens who 
take no part in acts of war and hate, but love peace 
and go on with their regular business. 
152 



1859.] A NOTABLE MAN IN KANSAS. 1 53 

In the midst of the discussions about Kansas, 
Charles Sumner, a Senator from Massachusetts, who 
had used violent language, such as the others had, 
was struck down in his seat on account of what 
he had said, by a representative from South Car- 
olina, who took advantage of his opponent's inabil- 
ity to protect himself. Mr. Sumner was taken from 
the chamber bleeding and unconscious. It was sev- 
eral years before he recovered. This seemed to be 
approved by the South, and it made the North 
think that the South wished to decide the questions 
between the sections by force. 

Three years later, another event made the men 
of the South think the same of the men of the 
North. There had been in Kansas, at the time of 
the troubles there, a man of very strong character, 
who read his Old Testament diligently, and brooded 
over the troubles that distracted the country. He 
read of the destruction of idolaters by the Children 
of Israel, and he finally found himself feeling that it 
was his duty to do what he could to free the slaves 
of the South, even if he had to destroy their mas- 
ters. For twenty years he had been meditating how 
he could thus free the southern slaves by force. He 



154 CHOOSING A PRESIDENT. [I860. 

had no right to do this, of course, and was very rash 
to think of it. 

He carried some slaves to Canada from Mis- 
souri, in 1858 ; and the next year with a score of 
men he appeared in Virginia. He took possession 
of the government arsenal at Harper's Ferry on 
the Potomac. He was overpowered, tried, and 
hanged. The North was astonished and the South 
alarmed by this raid of John Brown. 

It was thought in the South especially that this 
was an act planned by more than one man. Many 
people in the North excused it, and some even ad- 
mired it. There was therefore reason for thinking 
that it showed that the North was prepared to 
settle the question by war. Thus both sides 
were mistaken, though each thought it understood 
the other. 

You may imagine that there was excitement 
when the time came in i860 to choose a President. 
There were four parties. First, the Democrats met 
at Charleston, South Carolina, and selected Stephen 
A. Douglas of Illinois, who had framed the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill, and was in favor of " Squatter Sov- 
ereignty" as it was called. The members of that 



I860.] DETERMINING TO BREAK UP THE UNION. 1$$ 

party were not all satisfied with this man. He was 
not enough a partisan of slavery; and so they nom- 
inated another candidate who believed that neither 
Congress nor any other body had the right to ex- 
clude slavery from the territories. The Republicans, 
who were opposed to slavery, nominated Abraham 
Lincoln, of Illinois, a man about whom the nation 
knew little at the time, except that he believed in 
freedom, and in carrying out the laws of the land. 
That party was determined to keep slavery out of 
the territories. There were others, both North and 
South, who did not believe in extreme measures. 
They held a convention at Baltimore, and nomi- 
nated two good men, — John Bell of Tennessee and 
Edward Everett of Massachusetts, — men whom 
everybody honored. 

Politicians in the South thought that if Mr. 
Lincoln were elected he would take sides with the 
North against them, instead of carrying out the 
laws as President of the whole country. They there- 
fore determined to break up the Union if he were 
chosen. Many thought that this was like the threats 
that had been made on both sides for many years; 
but it was much more earnest. Mr. Lincoln was 



156 SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR. [1861. 

elected, and the Southern states determined to do as 
they had threatened. One by one they voted that 
they would not belong to the nation that they had 
before been proud of, and that their fathers had 
fought to found. This was a very grave act. 

Mr. Lincoln was as determined as they. He 
thought that a state could not go out of the Union 
unless the other states were willing. The Southern 
states took possession of the forts and other prop- 
erty of the United States that was in their borders. 
They held a convention which formed a government 
that they called the " Confederate States of America." 
Except that it was founded on slavery, it was very 
much like the one they had left. 

This made it the duty of the President to act as 
Jackson had, — to see that the laws were carried 
out in the South. The constitution and his oath 
of office bound him to do this. There was war, of 
course, but not without many efforts on the part of 
men who loved peace to keep from shedding blood. 

There were peace conferences ; Congress, which had 
a committee on national peril, tried to make some 
arrangement that would be satisfactory to all ; and 
there was a proposition for a convention of men 



1861.] . BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER. 1 5/ 

from all the states, such as there had been when 
the government was formed at first. These efforts 
failed, however, and the war began. 

It was long and bloody ; brother against brother ; 
friend against friend. The officers on both sides 
had been educated at the same academies ; the men 
had been in the same schools and colleges. The 
line drawn across the country from the Atlantic to 
the Mississippi River divided the regions that were 
now at war, and it separated families as well as 
states. 

In the South it was held that the particular state 
in which a man lived was his country, and that to 
it only he owed allegiance. There was therefore 
nothing to be done, he thought, but to serve his 
state loyally in the conflict with the United States. 
General Robert E. Lee of Virginia, one of the 
noblest of men, though he wept at the thought of 
civil war, thus took up the sword at the call of his 
state, and remained loyal to the Old Dominion to 
the end. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

WAR BETWEEN BRETHREN, 




HE people did not know the new President, 
but it was not long- before they found that 
he was good and kindly ; that he was deter- 
mined to do his duty, and that he loved peace rather 
than war ; but they found out also that he had settled 
it in his mind that the Union was not to be broken 
up. He called for soldiers, and they flocked to the 
flag. The whole North was in excitement. So was 
the South ; but there was a great difference. In the 
North men were unaccustomed to the use of the rifle, 
except in the wilder regions. In the South there 
was much hunting, and there was more of the military 
spirit. Besides this, the South knew that there was 
to be a war, as they said themselves ; while the North 
did not believe that it was comino-- The armies of 



MOTHERS MOURN FOR THEIR SONS. 1 59 

the South filled up rapidly, and soon the two bodies 
of men met in actual conflict. 

Mr. Lincoln called for too few soldiers at first, 
and the Union army was defeated in a number of 
battles. General Scott, who had fought in the Mexi- 
can war, was at the head of military affairs, but he 
gave place to younger officers. 

The President soon called for half a million more 
men, and they came. Gunboats and war-ships were 
prepared as quickly as possible. There was fighting 
in Missouri ; there was dreadful carnage on the Ten- 
nessee river ; there was an expedition to Roanoke 
Island ; there was a notable sea-fight off Fortress 
Monroe, near Norfolk, Virginia, between a new and 
strange vessel called a "Monitor" and another cov- 
ered with iron ; there were battles by the score in 
Virginia ; there were mothers mourning their sons all 
over the North and the South. 

The South had supposed that the white men 
might go to battle and leave the slaves at home to 
cultivate the fields, and thus that it would have an 
advantage over the North. In the course of the war 
President Lincoln saw that it would weaken the cause 
of the South if it did not have the slaves to depend 



l60 THE SLAVES ARE MADE FREE. [1863. 

upon. He therefore issued a proclamation declaring 
that all of them should be free after a certain time in 
states that were fighting against the Union. Of 
course this did not free the slaves unless the armies 
could get. at them ; but it freed all who were 
living in places to which the Union army came from 
time to time. The slaves were thus freed January 
I, 1863. 

Besides its forts along the coast of the Atlantic, 
the South had built many on the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi river. A great effort was made to capture 
these, and after a while they were all taken one by 
one. At the end . of 1864, General Sherman 
marched with a large army through the South, 
from Chattanooga to Savannah, cutting the rail- 
roads in two, and in many other ways weakening 
the power of the Confederates. 

In the spring of 1864 General Grant, who had 
been very efficient in the West, took command of the 
largest army of the North, in Virginia. There had 
been a terrible battle at Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, 
in July, 1863, in which the Confederates were de- 
feated, and it was then made certain that the United 
States army would in time be victorious. General 



THE CONTEST UNEQUAL. l6l 

Robert E. Lee was in command of the Confederate 
troops in Virginia, and his forces were growing- 
smaller all the time. 

The South had become weaker as the war went 
on. It could not send vessels to Europe, to bring 
in the sort of articles that it had formerly bought 
from the North. Coffee and tea became scarce ; 
shoes, blankets, hats, and clothing of all kinds grew 
poorer as time wore on ; there was great suffering. 
Almost all the men were obliged to go to the war, 
and the women were left at home unprotected. 

It was not so in the North. There the mills were 
busy ; the steamers sailed regularly for Europe ; 
commerce was active ; paper money was plenty ; 
farmers cultivated their fields ; soldiers were not seen, 
excepting when they were setting out for the seat of 
war ; there was, in fact, little suffering except sor- 
row for the loss of friends. There was a sufficiency 
of things necessary for life, and even of luxuries. 

The contest was unequal all the time. At first 
the South had many advantages ; but in the long run 
the North had the most. One great cause of weak- 
ness in the South was the worthlessness of its paper 
money. The experience of Revolutionary times was 



l62 THE CIVIL WAR ENDS. [1865. 

repeated there, but perhaps the case was worse. The 
bills were worth so little that ladies carried them in 
satchels instead of pocketbooks, when they went out 
to shop. The North suffered in this way, but not 
nearly so much. 

There could be but one result, unless the nations 
of Europe should be led to take the side of the 
South. It was expected by the leaders there that 
England would certainly take the Confederate side ; 
but this was a mistake ; the North was too strong for 
Great Britain to oppose, and some of the English 
people were friendly to their American cousins. The 
result was inevitable. In 1865 General Lee surren- 
dered all his forces to General Grant, and the war 
was soon over. Salutes were fired at every fort and 
arsenal in the United States, and the people all 
thanked God that the great struggle was no longer 
to distract the country. 

The President of the Confederacy fled from Rich- 
mond, which he had made his capital, as soon as he 
heard of his army's defeat, but he was captured and 
held for trial. 

Only five days after the surrender, while the 
North was rejoicing, President Lincoln was shot by 



1865.] A MUCH-LOVED PRESIDENT. 1 63 

an assassin, and the nation was plunged into the 
deepest mourning. He had served for one term, and 
in 1865 had entered upon a second, saying as he did 
so that he desired to do all that could be done to 
bind up the nation's wounds, to finish the work, as 
God showed him the right, and to accomplish it 
"with malice towards none, with charity for all," 
but with "firmness in the right." Thus he died; 
the most loved President since the first. He was 
honored and mourned in the South and the North 
as a good man, as well as a wise and strong ruler. 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 



PEACE AND RECONCILIATION. 




T is pleasant to turn from this glance at the 
civil war, which was the greatest struggle 
of modern times, to the period of peace that 
followed. It was a marvelous fact that the thousands 
of men who had just been doing all that they could 
to spread havoc and destruction returned to the 
ways of peace without great disturbances. General 
Lee, who, as has been said, wept bitter tears when 
he took up arms against the Union, expressed the 
warmest feelings for General Grant, who made the 
terms of surrender as easy as possible. 

No one can exult over the men who lost their 
cause ; they showed many of the noblest traits of 
manhood in their struggle. There were vast sac- 
rifices on the part of the men and women of the 
164 



THE BRILLIANT FUTURE OF THE SOUTH. 165 

South. The people of the North cannot appreciate 
them. The armies there fought for rights, as they 
considered them, and when overcome by superior 
forces, they generally gave up without reserve. We 
have lived to see the men who fought on opposite 
sides visiting the fields of batde together and study- 
ing in company the lessons of war ; we have heard 
champions of the South declaring that they rejoiced 
that slavery is done away, and that the Union has 
been saved. We have heard Senator Sumner of 
Massachusetts propose and press a resolution that 
the batde-flags of the Union should never bear upon 
them the names of victories won in the dreadful 
war of brethren. 

The men of the South came out poor ; but now 
they are winning back the fortunes that they lost ; 
mills and factories are building; new mines supply 
large districts with coal ,and iron that before the 
war were obliged to seek them from beyond their 
own borders ; there are good schools and colleges 
where there were none, or poor ones, before ; intelli- 
gence is increasing among the masses of the people, 
and the South never had so brilliant a future before 
it as it has to-day. 



l66 THE RESULT IN THE SOUTH. 

All this did not come at once. There were long 
years of suffering in the South. The land was 
drained of its strong men ; its money was gone ; it 
found itself with a vast number of voters, who knew 
nothing of the duties of freemen. The neo^roes, 
always accustomed to a life of dependence, thought 
of freedom as offering opportunities for idleness, — 
as freedom from labor. They were accustomed to 
work only as they were driven to it. 

It was not easy for them to form new habits. 
They were ignorant, and they needed a long process 
of education to fit them to take any but the most 
subordinate positions in the community ; and yet they 
were in a moment, by the stroke of a pen, endowed 
with all the rights of citizens. 

The President had one vote ; the most debased 
negro had no less. The former slave found himself 
in position of power, and doubdess he abused his 
opportunities. This is one of the disadvantages of 
a republic ; but it is one that may be outgrown. 
It will take a long time to raise the ignorant ne- 
groes from their intellectual and social degradation ; 
generations must pass before they can reach the 
position that white men who have never been 



DISORDER AFTER PEACE. 167 

enslaved have arrived at only by centuries of culti- 
vation. 

After the murder of President Lincoln the Vice- 
President took his place. He was not a man 
of the same commanding character, and he soon 
became involved in difficulties, from which the 
country suffered. When his term of office expired 
the general who had received Lee's surrender was 
elected in his place. General Grant was chosen 
again after he had served four years. (1869 -1877.) 

When peace came, it found the South in disorder. 
Its governments had to be formed anew. Conoress 
undertook this difficult duty, and there was a long 
period in which the South suffered from misgovern- 
ment. Three years after the war closed (1868) 
a general pardon was granted to all who had been 
engaged in the struggle against the Union, with few 
exceptions. Then these men had a right to take part 
in the government of the country. 

There was no proscription such as we read of 
in Roman history after civil war, and no general ex- 
ecution of men such as the world has seen time 
and again after such conflicts in other lands. This 
proved the strength of the republican form of gov- 



l68 THE ARMY DISBANDED. 

ernment, and the nations of the world were sur- 
prised at it, just as they had been surprised at 
the close of the Revolution. Eight hundred thou- 
sand soldiers were "mustered out" of service in the 
North in a few months, and returned to the ways of 
peace. In Europe it was thought that so many sol- 
diers could not safely be distributed over the coun- 
try, and that it would be necessary to keep them 
together as an army. It was supposed that the 
government would of course be obliged to give them 
employment, and that therefore a foreign war would 
certainly follow. This showed how little Europeans 
understood America and Americans. 

No ofreat war can come to a close without leav- 
ing many men scattered about who find it easier to 
go on in the lawless ways to which strife has made 
them accustomed than to earn honest livings, and 
we find that after our w^ar there were many such ; 
but the civil officers were generally able to take care 
of them. 

The debt made necessary by the expenses of the 
war was immense, and gave statesmen a difficult 
problem. The government owed more than twenty- 
seven hundred million dollars in 1866, and many had 



THE STRENGTH OF THE NATION. 1 69 

grave doubts whether the people would willingly bear 
the burden of taxation for the purpose of paying it, 
and the interest that was becoming due every half- 
year upon it. It was another evidence of the strength 
of the government that the House of Representatives, 
which is composed of men chosen by the people, 
voted that the debt was sacred, and that no attempt 
to free the nation from its payment would be coun- 
tenanced. Throuo-h all chano-es of administration, 
this policy has been adhered to, and the interest has 
been regularly met, while millions of the principal 
have also been paid. It is now so much reduced 
that it is a question how the vast income of the 
government can be used. 

While the war went on the country did not 
cease to grow in the North. Two new states were 
added before it closed, — one. West Virginia, was 
cut off from the Old Dominion in 1863 because 
its inhabitants remained true to the Union, and the 
other, Nevada, came in in 1864 because it had re- 
ceived a laree number of settlers. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



PROGRESS OF THE RE-UNITED COUNTRY. 




T seemed as though the country, instead of 
being- made poorer by the long war, had 
actually grown richer. Trade was brisk ; 
commerce with foreign lands prospered exceedingly ; 
costly luxuries were brought from Europe and re- 
moter regions ; villages were planted in new places ; 
they grew into towns ; immigrants thronged to our 
shores by the hundred thousand ; railways were built 
at the rate of thousands of miles a year ; and money 
flowed freely from the exchanges of Europe to enable 
us to pay for all that we thought fit to buy. The 
wealth of the people was supposed to have doubled, 
and their annual incomes were immense. 

In this state of affairs new enterprises were pushed 
in every direction. Invention prospered. When in 



1866.] THE MARVELS OF ELECTRICITY. I /I 

1844 the lightning which Benjamin FrankHn had 
brought from the clouds was made to convey mes- 
sages from place to place, it was little thought that 
it was within a few years to carry intelligence across 
the oceans, and yet in 1858 a wire was actually 
stretched under the Atlantic, and a few words flashed 
from the Old World to the New. These throbs did 
not long continue; but in 1866, after many vain at- 
tempts, a cable was laid and successfully used beneath 
the waves. It brought to us as its first message 
the news that peace had been declared between 
Austria and Prussia. More startling still was the 
invention of the telephone, patented in 1876, which 
not only carried messages, but also the very tones of 
the human voice itself, from place to place. 

In 1867, in spite of the heavy burdens of the 
country, the government bought of Russia that 
corner of our continent which was formerly called 
Russian America. It was named Alaska. The 
region had been explored, and it was thought a 
valuable acquisition, giving the United States the 
key to the Pacific Ocean. 

In 1869 the great railway was completed that had 
been long building across those western plains and 



\^2 THE PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPLETED. [1869. 

through those mountain ranges by which the pioneers 
who went to Cahfornia in 1849 1"^^<-1 been obHged 
slowly to find their difficult way, and the Pacific 
coast was brought as near the Atlantic as the 
Mississippi Valley had formerly been. The fol- 
lowing year the census of the country was taken, 
and it was found that, though the devastating years 
of war had interrupted progress, the population had 
increased some seven million in ten years. More 
than thirty-eight million inhabitants belonged to the 
Union that had begun life in 1776 with three mil- 
lion. The same year is to be remembered as that 
in which the President issued a proclamation declar- 
ing that the Union was complete again ; that every 
state in the South had renewed its allegiance and 
formed a new government. (1870.) 

During the war, though England had not been 
willing to take the part of the South openly, she 
had permitted certain ships belonging to it to enter 
her harbors and fit themselves to go to sea and 
prey upon the commerce of the Union. This was 
now acknowledged to have been wrong. Instead of 
going to war about the matter, it was agreed that 
a commission composed of persons appointed by the 



1873.] A TRIUMPH OF PEACE. I73 

President, the Queen of England, the Emperor of 
Brazil, the King of Italy, and the President of the 
Swiss Confederation, should meet at Geneva, and 
decide how much England ought to pay for 
the losses our commerce had met. Fifteen million 
dollars and more were named as the amount, and 
England paid it. This was a triumph of peace. 

There was another peace movement in the same 
year. President Grant became convinced that the 
Indians had not been properly taken care of by the 
government, and he made a new arrangement. It 
was called the "Quaker" plan, because the Presi- 
dent sent certain members of the peaceful body of 
Friends to visit the tribes and see what might be 
done for them by kindness. Little resulted at the 
time, and indeed, a severe Indian war followed, 
owing to treachery on the part of the whites. The 
Modocs who were enofaofcd in these troubles were 
overcome in 1873, but not until they had taken 
advantage of the lesson of treachery they had been 
taught, and had ruthlessly slaughtered some of the 
whites. Since that time more attention has been 
drawn to the Christian treatment of the Indians, and 
their condition is slowly improving. 



174 A FINANCIAL PANIC. [1873. 

The great investments that had been made in 
railways during the few past years, and their unpro- 
ductiveness, now led to a financial " panic." The first 
to give way to the pressure for money was a firm 
engaged in building a new railway to the Pacfiic, 
which followed a more northern route than the others, 
having its beginning at the western end of Lake 
Superior. This took place in the autumn of 1873, 
and it led to many other failures. 

Months passed before confidence w^as restored, 
and commerce could be carried on as usual. When 
there is such a great failure, men fear to trust other 
men. If they are afraid to trust them, they keep 
their money in banks, instead of letting it circulate 
in trade. In this way the lack of confidence becomes 
general, and many a man who in other times could 
go on with ease and pay all his debts is obliged to 
stop business apparently for no cause. This state of 
affairs is called a " panic," because in old times the 
Romans said that their god Pan was the cause of 
sudden fear for which there seemed to be no good 
reason. There had been such panics in 1837, ^"<^^ 
1859, when many banks and business houses were 
wrecked. 



CHAPTER XXX. 




A POLITICAL CRISIS. 

HE last year of President Grant's term was 
marked by two very important events. It 
had been resolved to celebrate the comple- 
tion of a hundred years of the Nation's life by 
holding- a great Exhibition of the fruits of peace 
at Philadelphia, the city in which Independence 
had been declared, and the government formed. 
Colorado, the thirty-eighth state, asked for admission, 
and was received into the Union that year. 

Great preparations were made in the different 
states for the " Centennial " celebration, as it was 
called. The city was thronged with visitors from 
May to November, and the grounds were filled with 
buildings put up to show the progress of the dif- 
ferent parts of the country, and the products of 



1/6 THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. [1876. 

foreign lands. It seemed as if the whole world 
was represented there, not only by its machinery 
and manufactures, but also by its inhabitants ; for 
apparently every language was spoken on the 
grounds. 

There were animal, vegetable, and mineral ma- 
terials out of which other articles are made ; 
there were foods and clothing of every character 
and style ; there were houses, and furniture to put 
into them ; there were tools and machines ; engines 
and locomotives ; statues and paintings ; books and 
newspapers ; scientific, architectural, and educational 
apparatus ; in fact, everything that had an)^ con- 
nection with civilization was in place there. A 
grand main building was provided for the minerals 
and machines ; an art gallery for the pictures, designs, 
mosaics, photographs, and all sorts of decorations ; 
there was an agricultural hall, containing whatever 
could interest the farmer; there were hot-houses, 
conservatories, and graperies. The women of Amer- 
ica had a building all to themselves, in w^hich every 
product in which they were interested was shown. 
Each state had one, in which it exhibited the fruits, 
manufactures, and mineral characteristics of its peo- 



1876.] AN EXCITING ELECTION. 1 7/ 

pie and region. The foreign countries had others 
in which they made their exhibitions, and each tried 
to show the advantage of buying the goods there 
exhibited. 

Such an array was never before seen in Amer- 
ica, and the effect upon the visitor was ahnost that 
of despair ; for no one could expect to become ac- 
quainted with all that was spread out before him. 
It was as though the world had been brought to 
Philadelphia. Days were required to learn what 
was to be found in the grounds, and all the weeks 
that the exhibition was open were not enough to 
enable one to study the different articles. It was 
a great display of human ingenuity, and of the pro- 
gress of the arts of peace and war ; for war had its 
place even there. 

Hardly had the exhibition been closed, when 
the election of President threw the whole nation 
into a state of excitement again. The Democrats 
and Republicans were both more than ever deter- 
mined to win ; and when the ballots were counted 
each party claimed it was victorious. There had 
been irregularity in voting in various places, and 
the result depended upon the accuracy with which 



1/8 A TRIUMPH OF AMERICAN CHARACTER. [1877. 

good and honest ballots could be separated from 
those that were dishonest. The people were almost 
evenly divided, and it seemed that if the question 
were decided either way, there would be trouble, 
— there might be war. 

Congress arranged that the matter should be 
settled by five members of the Senate, five of the 
House, and five justices of the Supreme Court. 
The country was for weeks in a state of suspense. 
No one felt certain what was coming. Men dared 
not manufacture goods, for fear that they might 
not be able to sell them at a profit ; they were 
afraid to buy land for the same reason. The ex- 
traordinary court met. Everybody watched it care- 
fully. It voted, — and the vote of one man among 
them decided that Rutherford B. Ha)'es of Ohio 
should be President for the following four years. 

Half of the people of the nation were displeased. 
They felt sure that Mr. Hayes had not been chosen 
by the people. What did they do ? Did they rise 
in rebellion, as people have in past ages, and 
in other lands, in cases that were not nearly so 
aggravating? Not at all. They said, "Our repre- 
sentatives have asked these fifteen men to settle this 



AMERICANS PROUD OF THEIR UNION. 179 

question ; we shall abide by their decision." Then 
they crowded about the Capitol at Washington, and 
peacefully listened to Mr. Hayes, as he took the 
oath which bound him to carry out the laws of the 
land for four years. No nation ever passed throuo-h 
such a crisis so calmly. It is another proof of the 
strength of our form of government. 

The United States had certainly become a nation. 
There was no doubt of that. It had reached the 
point that Washington wished it to attain, llic 
name " American," he said, should always stir our 
patriotism ; and no section, he added, ought ever to 
forget that its strength and greatness come from a 
unity of interests which binds all together as one 
Nation by a tie that can never be dissolved. 

It was not a combination of states which might 
be broken up at any time. Americans became 
proud of their Union, and the nations of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa saw that it was strong. The gen- 
eral government found no jealousies among the states 
that could hinder it from giving its help to railroads, 
making any sort of improvement, or even using a 
share of its great income to encourage popular edu- 
cation. 



l80 PUBLIC OFFICE A PUBLIC TRUST. 

The years as they pass strengthen the Nation. 
It chose General Garfield to follow Mr. Hayes as 
President. He was suddenly shot down by an as- 
sassin in 1881 ; but the Vice-President immediately 
took his place, and affairs went on as smoothly as 
ever. President Arthur's term expired in 1885, and 
Grover Cleveland, who had made a good governor 
of the great state of New York, took his place. 
He was a Democrat, and was the first of his party 
who had been President since the war ; but the 
reasons for the two parties had become less than 
ever before, and it is important now to get the best 
man for high office. 

Mr. Cleveland said that " public office is a public 
trust," which is not very different from what the 
great Lincoln meant when he said that our govern- 
ment is "of the people, by the people, and for 
the people." Daniel Webster, the Massachusetts 
statesman, had said very much the same thing. It 
is an American sentiment. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 

A NATION FULL-GROWN. 

NATION capable of such self-control as 
America showed at the election of Hayes 
may well be called full-grown. We have 
now come to the end of our history, and we shall 
find it profitable to review the course of our people 
on this continent from the early times. 

We remember first the explorers. They followed 
the track of the brave discoverer, Columbus, and 
peered into every harbor, every stream, that emptied 
into the ocean, to find a good place upon which a 
colony or a nation could be planted. We have fol- 
lowed the little ships of the olden time as they slowly 
sailed over the Atlantic with cargoes of precious lives 
that were to be laid down as sacrifices in the work 
of colonization. 

i8i 



l82 STATES LINE THE ATLAiNTIC COAST. 

We have seen the dusky savages of the woods 
parleying" with the strangers as they cautiously cut 
down the trees with which the first huts of the settle- 
ments were to be made. We have seen the savages, 
taught treachery by the intruders, sweep down upon 
the feeble hamlets of the white-faces and blot them 
out. We have seen the white-faces fighting among 
themselves, and in their wrath shedding Protestant 
and Catholic blood, because they did not understand 
the law of Christian love. 

In the midst of these tribulations we have seen 
groups of houses grow into villages, and villages into 
towns, until states were formed, — until at last they 
lined the shores of the Atlantic from Maine to Flor- 
ida. Next, the states have sent out colonies, and 
slowly the star that marks the center of population 
on our maps has followed the course of empire west- 
ward, until the whole broad expanse of the conti- 
nent is peopled, — until iron rails bind the two 
oceans together, and carry the surplus of one sec- 
tion to supply the deficit of another. 

Soon after the first setdement, the feeble folk 
on the shore of the Atlantic desired to be united 
for purposes of protection ; but as soon as they had 



THE GUILD BECOMES A YOUTH. 183 

formed a union, jealousies sprang up, and one and an- 
other member tried to be free from the bond that was 
at first expected to be a blessing. This process we 
have noticed repeated over and over again, after the 
whole of the states were bound together as one body. 

We have seen these settlements for years living 
in cheerful allegiance to the " mother-country," as 
they loved to call old England ; and again we have 
been conscious of a feeling growing up among them 
that the mother-country was too exacting. Then 
there came the strivings between love for the mother, 
and the love for freedom which that mother had taupfht 
her children. The desire for freedom would never 
have gained the mastery had the mother acted with 
the spirit of a real maternal love. She raised her 
hand against the child, now grown strong, and the 
child rebelled. The bond that was once so mighty 
was broken. The child had become a youth. 

Next the youth in his strength proclaims the 
grand principles that inheritance and experience 
have taught him. He declares to all nations that 
he will stand by his political creed against the world. 
He has good advisers and bad ones. Now he fol- 
lows the one, and now the other. Now he rises, and 



1 84 ALL OF US AMERICANS. 

now he falls ; but his general progress is upward. 
He grows ; but the time comes when his members 
are at war among themselves. Then there is a strain. 
The body groans. There is distress, and fearful pros- 
pect of convulsion and breaking up of the whole 
structure. 

The result is not this. The body survives the 
convulsion, and comes forth new made, — the child 
that we saw beginning life on the desert shores of 
a world inhabited only by the savages, is no longer 
even a youth ; he has grown to be a man, energetic 
and vigorous. There is no more war among the 
members. All are united, and in union there is 
strength. They are proud, too, of their union and 
of their strength. The mother-country honors the 
mighty, full-grown nation, and there is no people in 
the world that does not follow her example. 

More than ever do Americans realize the ardent 
wish expressed in 1765, by Christopher Gadsden of 
South Carolina, — "There ought to be no 'New 
England man,' no ' New Yorker ' known on the con- 
tinent, but all of us American^ r' 



INDEX 



AND EXPLANATIONS OF PRONUNCIATION. 



Adams, John, no ; favors independ- 
ence, 79; on the character of 
Congress, SS'') on Tories, 53; 
on the rights of the Ameri- 
cans, 30; unpopular, 112; on 
Washington, loi. 

Adams, John Ouincy, 135. 

Adams, Samuel, a guide for Bos- 
tonians, 35; at the tea-party, 49 ; 
to be punished, 52 ; reports from 
the Continental Congress, 68 ; 
prepares resolutions, 38. 

Alien and sedition laws, the, in. 

American, importance of the name, 

29, 83> I79> 1805 184- 
Arizona bought from Mexico, 149. 
Arkansas, admitted, 145. 
Arnold, Benedict, the traitor, 90. 
Arthur, Chester Alan, 180. 
Assistance, writs of, 14. 

Balcony (a platform projecting 
from an outer wall), 25. 

Banks, the, fail, 141. 

Barbecue, a large open-air enter- 
tainment, 25. 



Boston, a center of interest, 52; 
British shut up in, 63 ; effect of 
the fall of, 75 ; men arm them- 
selves, 45; port of, shut up, 51. 

Bow-wows, the three, arrive in 
Boston, 65. 

Brown, John, and his raid, 1 53, 1 54. 

Buchanan, James, 151. 

Bunker's Hill, battle of, 66. 

Burgess (a representative), 19. 

Burgoyne arrives in Boston, 65 ; de- 
feated at Saratoga, 89. 

Calhoun, John C, 137. 

California, discovery of gold in, 144; 
admitted to the Union, 145. 

Cambridge, agrees with other towns 
in opposing the tea tax, 47 ; Wash- 
ington in, 73. 

Centennial exhibition, the, 175, 177. 

Charleston rejoices at the Declara- 
tion of Independence, 82 ; attacked 
by the British, 91. 

Charlestown, great gathering, 56. 

Citizenship, as regarded by Eng- 
land, n5, 122. 

183 



1 86 



INDEX. 



Clay, Henry, presents a compro- 
mise tariff, 138; his compromise 
of 1850, 147. 

Cleveland, Grover, President, 180. 

Commerce interrupted by the stamp 
act, 44; prospers in the North, 
106; interfered with, 120, 123. 

Compromise at the foundation of 
the constitution, 100. 

Compromise, the Missouri, 126; 
the, of 1850, 146, 147. 

Concord Bridge, battle at, 63. 

Confederate States, formed, 155. 

Confederation, the, ,85, 97. 

Congress, an annual proposed, 15; 
the Provincial, 67. 

Congress, the first Continental, 29, 
53 ; powerless, 67, 69, "]"] ; some of 
its members, 69. 

Congress, the second, 70 ; favors 
independence, 79; held in con- 
tempt, 96; migrations of, 92, 
sends delegates to France, 14. 

Connecticut, claims of, 84. 

Constitution, a national, proposed 
by Hamilton, 90. 

Cornvvallis comes over, 91. 

Cotton-gin, invention of the, 107. 

Crown Point taken, 65. 

Cumberland Road, the, 116. 

Davis, Jefferson, sends to survey 
a route to the Pacific, 149. 

Debt, the American, paid off, 135, 
140; after the civil war, 168, 169. 

Debts, difficulty of paying after the 



Revolution, 96; the public, set- 
tled by Hamilton, 103. 

Dissolution of tlie Union threat- 
ened, 99, 119, 156. 

Duties, import, 123, 134; asked, 
for by manufacturers, 124; discus- 
sion of, 102, 106, 133. 

Embargo (a prohibition to sail), 
the, of 1807, 117. 

England, authority of, supreme in 
America, 7; views regarding the 
stamp act, 39 ; determines to ruin 
American manufactures, 124; dif- 
ficulties with, 117, 120; treaty 
with, 100; pays for aiding the 
Confederates, 172. 

Eutaw Springs, battle of, 91. 

Faneuil Hall (fiin'-el or fan'-el), 

place of meeting in Boston, 40. 
Federal party (Latin/av/wj-, a treaty), 

100; in the North, 106, 119, 124; 

unpopular, 102; killed, 125. 
Florida admitted, 145. 
France takes the part of America, 

89; revolution in, 109; demands 

sympathy, 1 10. 
Franklin, Benjamin, life of, 8, 10; 

presents a plan for Union, 15; 

plans for a Senate and House, 99; 

watches affairs in London, 54; 

pleads for his native land, ^"j ; 

returns, 65 ; is sent to Versailles ; 

(ver-salz, French, var-sa-yeh), 90. 
Franklin, the state of, 97. 



INDEX. 



187 



Friends, 24, 25 ; take up arms, 64 ; 
favor abolition of slavery, 107, 138. 
Fugitive slave law, the, 147. 

Gadsden, Christopher, wants all 
to be "Americans," 29; thanks 
God, 78, 100; on the name 
American, 184. 

Gage, General, 30 ; sent to Boston, 
51; seeks American powder, 56; 
character of, 65. 

Garfield, James Abram, 180. 

Garrison, W. L., 139. 

George the Third, character of, 43, 
57 ; seeks men, 75 ; acknowledges 
independence of America, 93. 

Gettysburg, battle at, 160. 

Grant, General Ulysses S., 160; 
makes terms easy for Lee, 164; 
chosen President, 167. 

Greene, Nathaniel, 91. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 97, 103. 

Hancock, John, 46, 81. 

Harper's Ferry taken, 154. 

Harrison, W. H., 119, 142. 

Hartford, secret convention at, 124. 

Harvard College, removed, 63 ; li- 
brary sent to Andover, 64. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., 17S. 

Henry, Patrick, at Williamsburg, 19 ; 
appearance of, 20; great speech 
of, 22 ; on the power of America, 
51 ; in favor of sharp action, 58. 

Hessians arrive in America, 88. 

Illinois, admitted, 118. 



Immigration, 132, 149, 150. 

Impressment of seamen, 114. 

Independence not desired, 59 ; 
talked of, 78 ; Declaration of, 80. 

Independence Hall, 70. 

Indiana admitted, 118. 

Indians, war with, 105,119; Wash- 
ington's feelings for, 105 ; treat- 
ment of, 1 10, 173. 

Iowa admitted to the Union, 145. 

Jackson, Andrew, 121 ; becomes 
President, 133 ; name of, stirs 
the people, 136; aroused, 137. 

Jealousy interferes with union, 16; 
between states, 119, 137; between 
the North and the South, 152. 

Jefferson, Thomas, hears Henry 
plead, 21 ; in the continental con- 
gress, 69, 79, 80; secretary of 
state, 103 ; attached to the French, 
no; chosen President, 112; on 
slavery, 126. 

Kansas, settlement of, 150; ad- 
mitted, 151; John Brown in, 153. 
Kentucky admitted, 109. 

Kentucky, resolutions, the, 112. 

King of England, the, interferes 
with American affairs, 8, 9, 20. 

Kosciusko (kos-se-us'-ko ; in Polish, 
kosh-yoo'-sko), arrives, 89. 

Lafayette, General, arrives, 86. 
Lee, Richard Henry, 22, 79. 
Lee, Robert E., loyal to Virginia; 
157; slow to take up arms, 164; in 



1 88 



command of the Confederate 
troops, i6t ; surrenders, 162. 

Lexington, battle at, 62. 

Liberty sought in America, 8; 
pleaded for by Patrick Henry, 
21 ; in Pennsylvania, 26, 43. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 155; assassina- 
tion of, 162; character of, 153, 163. 

Livingston, Robert, 69, 80. 

Louisiana bought from France, 113; 
admitted to the Union, 118. 

Lovejoy, murder of, 147. 

Lundy, Benjamin, 139. 

Madison, James, 64, 118. 

Maine admitted, 118, 127. 

Marietta, settlement of, 130. 

Marion, daring deeds of, 91. 

Maryland on Western claims, 85. 

Mason and Dixon's line, 126, 127. 

Massachusetts proposes a congress, 
16; opposed to royalty, 35; asks 
for a general, 71 ; western claims, 
84; nullifies laws, 112. 

Massacre, the Boston, 46, 59. 

Mexico, war with, 143. 

Michigan admitted, 145. 

Militia, the American (Latin, miles, 
a soldier, citizen-soldiers), 58, 75. 

Minnesota admitted, 151. 

Mississippi admitted, 113. 

Missouri, 125; admitted, 118, 127. 

Missouri compromise, the, 150. 

Mob (Latin, mobile vulgus, the 
movable populace), a riotous gath- 
ering, 42. 



Money troubles, 95, 102, 129. 
Monroe, James, President, 118, 

Nation, the American, birth of, 55 ; 
difficulty of forming, 83 ; idea of 
the, not quickly accepted, 97. 

Navigation laws, the, 8. 

Nebraska a territory, 150. 

Negroes, freedom of the, 166. 

Nevada admitted to the Union, 169. 

New Haven sacked, 90. 

New Jersey people hang a represen- 
tative in effigy, 34. 

New Orleans, 114; battle at, 121. 

New York, grievance of, 14; op- 
posed to the stamp act, 16, 39; 
opposition to England at, 28 ; size 
of, 32 ; wants a congress, 53 ; de- 
crease of values at, 141. 

North Carolina, 78. 

Northwestern Territory, the, estab- 
lished, 87, 98; free forever, 130. 

Nullitication in 1797, ii2; feared 
from New England, 117; two 
ways of, 133; talked about, 137; 
of the fugitive slave law, 148. 

Ohio, 123; admitted, 118. 
Ordinance, the, of 1787, 87, 129. 
Oregon admitted to the Union, 151. 
Otis, James, gives up a good office, 
14; goes to the Congress, 29. 

Pacific Railway, 149, 171, 174. 
Paper money, in the Revolution, 77 ; 
troubles with, 162, 102. 



INDEX 



I 89 



Parliament (par'-li-ment, French, 
parler^ to talk), the English legis- 
lature, 57. 

Philadelphia, 47 ; taken by the Brit- 
ish (1777), 90; convention at, 99; 
the capital, 103. 

Penn proposes a congress, 15. 

Pennsylvania, 127. 

Pierce, Franklin, President, 140. 

Pitt, William, 44. 

Pla-card', a (written or printed paper 
posted in a public place), 31. 

Polk, James K., President, 143. 

Postmasters appointed by the Presi- 
dent, 135. 

Princeton, battle of, 89. 

Putnam, Israel, 64. 

Quakers. See Friends. 
Ouincy, Josiah, on the admission of 
Louisiana, 119. 

Reform promised by Jackson, 136. 

Reserve, the Western, 86. 

Revere, Paul, 49 ; sent to Lexington, 
60; goes to Lexington a second 
time, 61 ; his lanterns, 60, 61. 

Richmond becomes the capital of 
Virginia, 19; convention at, 58. 

Rights, Henry talks of, 20 ; Declara- 
tion of, 30 ; drawn up by the Con- 
tinental Congress, 55 ; studied, "]"]. 

Riots in New York, stamp act, 41 ; 
with slavery, 139. 

Saratoga, battle of, 89. 



Scott, Winfield, 138; at the head of 
the Union troops, 159. 

Secession, 99, 156. 

Sherman, General W. T., 160. 

Slavery becomes more profitable, 
108; debates upon, 106, 107, 125, 
138, 144, 146; the Confederate 
States founded on, 150. 

Slaves, change in circumstances of, 
166; decision of Supreme Court 
about, in 1857, 151 ; freed, 160. 

South, agriculture in, 106, 134; im- 
provement of, 165 ; misgovernment 
of, 167; sacrifices, 164, 166; ap- 
proves the first Congress, 53; 
united on slavery, 139. 

South Carolina nuUifies tariff laws, 
138; resists taxes, 49. 

Spain sells Louisiana, 114. 

Squatter sovereignty, 150. 

Stamp act, notice of, 13; objected 
to, 10; passed, 15; in Philadel- 
phia, 27 ; demand for its repeal, 
30 ; takes effect, 38 ; repealed, 
44. 

Stark, John, hurries to Boston, 64. 

State Rights, 100, 137, 157. 

States, formation of the, 83 ; in- 
crease in the number of, 132; 
rights of, difficult to define, 83. 

Steuben (stu'-ben, German, stoi'- 
ben), General, arrives, 89. 

Stoop (Dutch, stoep), a porch with 
balustrades and seats, 31. 

Sumner, Charles, assaulted, 153. 

Sumter, daring deeds of, 91. 



[QO 



INDEX. 



Tariff, the, increased, 123; discus- 
sion of, 133; compromise, 138. 

Taxation, 10, 14, 45. 

Taylor, General Zachary, war, 143; 
chosen President, 144. 

Tea, a tax on, 43, 45 ; shipped to 
various American ports, 47. 

Tecumseh, war with, 119. 

Telegraph, invention of, 171; the 
Atlantic, 171. 

Tennessee admitted, 109. 

Texas, annexation of, 142; settle- 
ment of, 143; admitted, 145. 

Tories, the, 53; 64, 74; strong in 
Pennsylvania, 53. 

Tory (a supporter of kingly and 
churchly authority), 32. 

Towns, importance of, 37. 

Trade, interference of parliament 
in, 9; taxes on, 10, 14; on the Poto- 
mac, 93 ; injured by the embargo, 
117; interfered with, 120, 123. 

Trenton, battle of, 89. 

Tyler, John, President, 142. 

Underground railroad, the, 148. 

Union, Americans talk of, 13, 15, 
17; of the New England colonies 
in 1643, 15 ; demand for drowns all 
jealousy, 49 ; of the provinces pro- 
posed, 50 ; difficulty of making, 83 ; 
value of, 93 ; dissolution of 
threatened, 119; a Southern view 
of, 1 24 ; danger of at election of 
Lincoln, 155. 

Van Buren, Martin, President, 141. 



Vaux Hall (vox'-hall, vaux is a 
corruption of fulk, a proper name), 
a New York estate, 42. 

Vermont, admitted, 109. 

Virginia, 14; alarms the country, 
23; life in, 18, 24; opposes the 
stamp act, 16; proposes inde- 
pendence, 78. 

War, the Civil, 153. 

Warren, Joseph, climbs in at a 
window, 59 ; death of, 67. 

Washington, George, opinion about 
the condition of public affairs, 
46; leads in the formation of 
militia companies, 58 ; placed 
at the head of the army, 71 ; 
enters Boston, 74; distressing 
position of in 1775, 78; gratified 
that western claims are settled, 
86 ; leaves Boston, 88 ; farewells 
of at tlie close of the Revolution, 
93, 94; the first President, 100; 
inuagurated, 102; opposition to, 
loi, 105; makes an unpopular 
treaty, 104. 

Watauga Association, the, 97. 

Webster, Daniel, 122, supports the 
compromise of 1850, 148. 

West, land claimed by the colo- 
nies in, 84; settlement of the, 128. 

West Virginia admitted, 169. 

Winthrcp, John, 36. 

Wisconsin admitted, 145. 

Wythe, a Virginian leader, 21. 

YoRKTOWx, battle at, 92. 



